Mr. Barr’s attempt to remove Mr. Berman came two days after excerpts released from Mr. Bolton’s upcoming book described what Mr. Bolton said was Mr. Trump’s willingness to intervene in criminal investigations, including one in Mr. Berman’s office.
Mr. Bolton wrote in the book that Mr. Trump in 2018 had promised the Turkish president, Mr. Erdogan, that he would interfere in an ongoing investigation against a Turkish company accused of violating Iranian sanctions.
“Trump then told Erdogan he would take care of things, explaining that the Southern District prosecutors were not his people, but were Obama people, a problem that would be fixed when they were replaced by his people,” Mr. Bolton wrote, according to an excerpt published this week in The Washington Post.
At the time, Mr. Berman was the U.S. attorney overseeing the case. The company, Halkbank, a state-owned bank in Turkey, was indicted in the Southern District last year.