“The prospect of a second Trump administration frightens me,” says Geoffrey Berman, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in the Trump Justice Department. He spoke with Ankush Khardori
references to Trump, who was described as “Individual-1.” Berman was recused from the case given his role on the Trump campaign, but as the plea was being finalized, Ed O’Callaghan, a senior department official in Washington, called Robert Khuzami, a deputy in Berman’s office, to complain about all of the references to Trump in the draft. The document was substantially revised and shortened, but the gist was clear after Cohen pleaded guilty in court: Trump had told him to make the payment.
At least as a matter of standard prosecutorial practice, O’Callaghan’s concern was perhaps less crazy than Berman makes it out to be. As Bermanin an interview last week, Cohen’s guilty plea would not by itself have decisively established a case against Trump, and the Justice Department does not necessarily implicate readily identifiable, uncharged third parties — much less the sitting president — when a defendant pleads guilty before an indictment, as Cohen did.
Berman was more direct about the reality of Trump’s legal exposure when we spoke. “If there was a case to be charged” against Trump “regarding the campaign-finance violation, the Southern District would have charged it” after Trump left office, he said. Later in 2018, as the midterms approached, O’Callaghan called Khuzami again. This time, according to Berman, O’Callaghan told him that the office should criminally charge former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig, whom it had been investigating for potential misconduct in connection with his work for the Ukrainian government.
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