Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes write:

The big question is why.

Why would the president fire a federal prosecutor just five months before an election, with no indication of wrongdoing on the prosecutor’s part, in a manner sure to ignite controversy?

Three days into the scandal around the abrupt dismissal of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, we still have no answers.

The administration’s handling of Berman’s firing was comically—and typically—inept: The Justice Department announced late on Friday that Berman would be stepping down, only for Berman himself to issue an extraordinary statement indicating that he had no intention of doing so. By Saturday night—after receiving two separate letters from the Justice Department demanding his departure—Berman had officially resigned, having secured the appointment of his chosen deputy as his successor, rather than the Justice Department’s preferred pick. (Donald Trump seemed to come close to derailing the entire thing by declaring himself to be “not involved” just hours after Attorney General William Barr announced that the president himself had dismissed Berman, but the prosecutor departed soon after.)

The twists and turns made for a rollicking 24 hours. And yet, for all the drama, the little matter of why Trump and Barr decided to get rid of Berman in the first place remains a mystery.

There are a range of plausible explanations. Some are worse than others, though none represents what one would like to see from the Department of Justice. [Continue reading…]