Intimidation, Pressure and Humiliation: Inside Trump’s Two-Year War on the Investigations Encircling Him
How The Times Reported This Story To write this story, New York Times reporters reviewed documents and conducted several dozen interviews with current and former government officials, members of Congress, legal experts and more. As federal prosecutors in Manhattan gathered evidence late last year about President Trump’s role in silencing women with hush payments during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump called Matthew G. Whitaker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. He asked whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Trump ally, could be put in charge of the widening investigation, according to several American officials with direct knowledge of the call. Mr. Whitaker, who had privately told associates that part of his role at the Justice Department was to “jump on a grenade” for the president, knew he could not put Mr. Berman in charge because Mr. Berman had already recused himself from the investiga...