In a sign that Mr. Barr’s move to fire Mr. Berman may have been hurriedly arranged, even Mr. Clayton, the man who was about to take Mr. Berman’s place, seemed to be caught off guard.
Clayton had sent an email to his team on Thursday saying he hoped to see them in person, once the work-at-home restrictions that had been imposed because of the coronavirus could be lifted. The email offered no indication that Clayton was planning to leave the SEC, according to an informed person.
Shortly after midnight on Saturday, Mr. Clayton sent another email to his employees, telling them about his new position. “Pending confirmation,” he wrote, “I will remain fully committed to the commission’s work and the support community we have built,” according to a revised copy by The New York Times.
Clayton could not be reached for comment.
On Saturday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who heads the House Judiciary Committee, said the committee would investigate Berman’s resignation as part of a larger investigation into what he said was undue political interference in the Justice Department.
“The whole thing smells of corruption and incompetence,” said Nadler of Berman’s resignation.
Under Trump’s command, the Justice Department has always believed that the Southern District was out of control. This was largely because the department believed that prosecutors in New York took too long to warn them that they were naming Mr. Trump – as “Individual-1” – in court documents in Cohen’s indictment.
When Barr became attorney general, officials in the assistant attorney general’s office, who oversees regional prosecutors, asked him to control Berman, who they believed was exacerbating the Southern District’s propensity for autonomy. The firm has adopted the nickname of “New York’s Sovereign District” because of its tradition of independence.
A particular point of contention was the question of how Berman and his team should investigate Halkbank, a Turkish state bank that the office indicted last year, according to three people familiar with the investigation.