One’s going to testify before Congress. One’s going to move from Brooklyn to Washington.
On the day when former SDNY US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman stated he will give voluntary testimony to House Judiciary Committee about the politicalization of the Department of Justice, according to The New York Times, the attorney serving in the top spot in the Eastern District of New York (which is based in Brooklyn) announced a move to to the main DoJ office in DC.
An ally of Attorney General Bill Barr, renowned prosecutor Richard P. Donoghue will become No. 2 in the office of the deputy attorney general, which oversees regional US Attorneys offices. The position is all the more important given that the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, has never served as a prosecutor at any level.
Berman testimony before Congress could potentially be highly damaging to both Barr and Trump, given the the SDNY office was overseeing prosecutions of Trump associates and Trump businesses. The EDNY was conducting investigations into Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and his associates Lev Parnas and Igor Furman.
All this comes after Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, a former prosecutor for US Attorney for the District of Columbia, told the House Judiciary Committee that senior attorneys and administrators in the office told him to recommend a lighter sentence for Trump associate Roger Stone.