Who believes trump had nothing to do with the firing of the us attorney?

Shoot, I think his advisers do it and let him know later on.

Nah, his advisors were probably begging him not to do it since it's an obvious and severe strategical blunder.

So much going on that Ex branch abusing power in the name of defending itself. And it’s a nothing burger

Trump will probably be the single most misunderstood public figure in our lifetime. A part of that is his fault for being both a unique and poor communicator, and part of that is willful blindness on the part of overeager critics desperate to share in the latest "joke".

He doesn't seem to be saying "I didn't give sign-off", which he obviously and clearly did. He's saying that it was Barr's decision. The two aren't contradictory. I can be required to sign off my subordinate's decision at work and trust/empower them to make that call without my input.

Trump tends to be very hands off with the lieutenants (e.g. Pompeo, Barr) that he trusts. Barr wanted him gone, and Trump sees it as Barr's decision. Trump's decision was and is to keep Barr as AG.

Oh please, that's complete bullshit. Barr has been extreme servile and eager to be Trump's paladin even during his most questionable episodes. He would never call for a move that 1. serves Trump's interests, 2. is legally and morally dubious at best and 3. wasnt endorsed and encouraged, explicitly or implicitly, by Trump.

You're giving way too much credit to Trump here. There is a difference between Barr doing something that he believes will benefit the president, and Barr being directed to do something by the president. I disagree with your characterization of him, though, Barr's actions have been largely consistent with his views on the scope of executive power. I don't doubt that he genuinely believes that Trump should not have been subjected to the Russiagate investigation, that Trump is being unfairly denied prerogatives exercised by previous presidents, and that the executive branch needs to defend its authority from legislative and judicial encroachment. At the same time, he cannot continue in his position without the president's goodwill, and that means actively defending the president. All of this is an aside, because it's not relevant to whether or not Barr personally wanted Berman gone.

To be honest, I'm not even sure Trump knew who Berman was. He's not exactly an aware manager. He has delegated authority to Barr, and relies on Barr to exercise that authority. We saw Barr publicly rebuke the president when the president did try to assert himself directly in the AG's work. We saw Pompeo ask the president to fire someone Trump obviously new very little about, and Trump bragged that he got rid of him specifically because Pompeo didn't like him. Barr is the one who thought Berman was difficult to work with, Barr is the one who was upset that Berman wasn't falling in line. Given all of this, the simplest and easiest explanation is that Barr wanted Berman gone, and Trump gave his "loyal retainer" what he wanted.

This post was edited by bogie160 on Jun 23 2020 07:36am

So would this be equal to Obama’s AG firing a US Attorney to protect HRC?

Lawl.

It may just be more a function of Trump's unwillingness to take responsibility for anything. He may have given the okay, but he doesn't want to be held responsible for it.



I understand thinking of Trump as a complete idiot, because he is in many ways, but in others he's not. Trump fired the last SDNY US attorney after he had multiple phone calls with him, something Preet Bharara said never happened once with Obama. Of course Trump knows who runs SDNY, because they are the district who would prosecute anything related to Trump's organization, and who prosecuted Cohen and investigated Trump's inaugural fund and Trump's personal attorney.