Bolton book: ‘Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things, explaining that the Southern District prosecutors were not his people, but were Obama people, a problem that would be fixed’
An extraordinary standoff between the Justice Department and Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman ended Saturday when the prosecutor agreed to leave his job.
Berman finally left after being given an assurance that his investigations into allies of President Donald Trump would not be disturbed – including an investigation related to Turkey, which former national security advisor John Bolton claims Trump had told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “he would take care of.” Ahead of Berman’s removal over the weekend, Bolton had taped an interview with ABC News in which he says Trump’s conversations with Erdogan “did feel like obstruction of justice to me.”
The Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to oust the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman have set off a firestorm in Washington, with Democrats accusing President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr of possible “obstruction of justice” by meddling in an office known to be conducting ongoing investigations of potential interest to Trump.
In his exclusive interview during a one-hour special airing Sunday, 9 p.m. ET with ABC News Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz prior to the stunning series of events Friday night, former national security adviser John Bolton discussed an episode from his forthcoming memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” in which he said President Trump previously floated the idea of intervening in the Southern District related to its investigation of a state-owned Turkish bank.
Watch Martha Raddatz’s interview with John Bolton in a one-hour special at 9 p.m. ET, Sunday, June 21 on ABC News.
In the interview, Bolton said of the December 2018 exchange, “it did feel like obstruction of justice to me.”