Penguin Random House: Penguin Press Title HOLDING THE LINE Prompts Senate Investigation

Geoffrey Berman, photo credit: Ethan Hill

“Throughout my tenure as US attorney, Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining – in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired. I walked this tightrope for two and a half years. Eventually, the rope snapped.” – from Holding the Line


The NY Times reported earlier this week that The Senate Judiciary Committee will investigate allegations in HOLDING THE LINE that the Justice Department under President Donald J. Trump sought to use the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan to support Mr. Trump politically and pursue his critics. Geoffrey S. Berman, the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan, has written an explosive and gripping memoir that gives and inside look on of one of the most tumultuous two-and-a-half-year stretches in the over two-hundred-thirty year history of the office.

Geoffrey Berman is the former US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In that role, he was responsible for some of the nation’s most important prosecutions, including terrorism and sanctions cases, securities and commodities fraud, public corruption, cybercrime, money laundering, sex trafficking, narcotics, gang violence, and civil rights violations. He previously served as an Assistant US Attorney in the Southern District of New York and as Associate Counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel (Iran-Contra). Following his tenure as US attorney, Berman was a visiting professor at Stanford Law School. In December 2020, Berman joined the law firm of Fried Frank, where he is a litigation partner and head of the white collar defense practice.