标题: United States Attorney for Southern District of New York [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 4-17-2018 15:14 标题: United States Attorney for Southern District of New York Benjamin Weiser and Ben Protess, From Trump's Hometown, a New Legal Threat with Long Arms; A US attorney's office is known for its nonpartisanship. New York Times, Apr 15, 2018 (front page). https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/ ... risk-for-trump.html
My comment:
(a) Mr Trump's administration had fired the Obama-era leader [Preet Bharara] of the United States attorney's office for the Southern District of New York [whose jurisdiction is Manhattan] last year, after initially asking him to stay on. Earlier this year, the administration installed a Republican former prosecutor and party donor, Geoffrey S Berman, after Mr Trump made an unusual request to interview him personally."
(i) Interview of a president is indeed exceeding rare.
(ii) As a rule of thumb, a high-ranking official of a state (frequently the senior US senator) -- from president's political party -- will recommend a person to the job of US attorneys. The president will accept it, though the president may not know the recommended person.
(b) "And the office's longstanding reputation for nonpartisanship and autonomy — it is jokingly referred to as the 'Sovereign District' — could make it less vulnerable to attacks from either the president’s allies or his critics. 'The office [office of US attorney at Manhattan] has been historically known for its independence of the Justice Department,' said John S Martin Jr, a former United States attorney in Manhattan and former federal judge."
You should treat the report as a fiction, to the extent US attorney at Manhattan is "independent" -- not to mention "sovereign" Investigating a big shot (much less conducting raid with search warrant certainly) needs approval from Department of Justice at DC. That happened when US attorney for Maryland investigated Vice President Spiro Agnew for having taken bribes (no raid in that case)..
(c) "Mr Berman[, the interim US attorney at Manhattan] is a registered Republican * * * Mr [Berman's hand-picked first assistant US attorney Robert S] Khuzami, who grew up in Rochester, is registered as 'nonpartisan ['Independent' in Massachusetts].' "