Attorney General William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing regarding the Department of Justice's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, on Wednesday, May 1, 2019.

Before Geoffrey Berman was tapped to be U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, President Donald Trump in 2017 took the highly unusual step of interviewing him personally—and by doing so, raised suspicions that the Greenberg Traurig partner would be his toady, loyally protecting his patron.

Turns out, many onlookers (myself included) underestimated Berman—and overestimated Attorney General William Barr, who of late seems to be channeling his inner super villain. At this point, all he needs is a secret lair and a moat of alligators. (Oh wait, that's going in by the wall.)

On Friday night, Barr announced that Berman was "stepping down" from the SDNY. 

Not so fast, Berman responded. "I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position," Berman said—prompting Barr to pull an "I'm-telling-dad" move. "Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so," Barr wrote in a letter to Berman.

But Trump disavowed playing any role. "I'm not involved," the president on Saturday told reporters.

And then there's Jay Clayton, the third leg of this excruciating triangle. The former Sullivan & Cromwell partner was *this* close to leaving the Trump administration as chairman of the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission with his reputation intact—which is not something that a lot of the president's appointees can say. (See Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon, H.R. McMaster, Rex Tillerson, Ronny Jackson, John Kelly, Jeff Sessions, Kirstjen Nielson, et al.)

Now, Clayton, who is Trump's pick to replace Berman at the SDNY, is tainted by the bungled resignation—and the distinct sense that there's something fishy about why the Trump administration wanted Berman gone.

Because c'mon. If you fire the nation's most powerful U.S. attorney—whose office is overseeing multiple investigations related to the president and his associates—on a Friday night via press release? For no stated reason? And with a presidential election in less than five months? 

There are going to be questions. Lots of questions. Surely Clayton—even if he didn't know up front just how badly this was going to play out—realized that. And now he's caught in the flotsam.

As Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer put it in a statement on Saturday, Clayton can "allow himself to be used in the brazen Trump-Barr scheme to interfere in investigations by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, or he can stand up to this corruption, withdraw his name from consideration, and save his own reputation from overnight ruin."

Ouch.

His nomination may be dead on arrival anyway. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said he'd defer to New York's two senators, both Democrats, before moving forward. "As to processing U.S. Attorney nominations, it has always been the policy of the Judiciary Committee to receive blue slips from the home state senators before proceeding to the nomination. As chairman, I have honored that policy and will continue to do so."

There's a certain irony in the botched Berman removal. Because remember that initial Trump/ Berman job interview in 2017?  That's why New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand vowed to block Berman's nomination—and why rather than being confirmed by the Senate, he was hired instead by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions on an interim basis. 

When that appointment ran out, the judges of the Southern District of New York opted to keep Berman on, exercising their power "to fill the office until such time as the President nominates and Congress confirms a new incumbent," Chief Judge Colleen McMahon wrote to her colleagues on the bench.

In his initial hell-no-I-won't-go statement, Berman invoked this as grounds to stay put, noting that he "was appointed by the Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate." 

Forcing him out suddenly got a lot more complicated, and Berman seems to have used this leverage to his advantage.

I admit, I was selfishly rooting for an epic executive/ judicial branch showdown (because column fodder), but what happened instead was almost surely for the greater good. 

Berman agreed to step down—but Barr in turn abandoned a key part of his initial plan, which called for installing Craig Carpentino, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, as the acting SDNY head.

Carpentino, the former co-chair of Alston & Bird's litigation and trial practice group and white collar group, was perhaps best known in private practice for defending former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the "Bridgegate" scandal.

Now, rather than Carpentino, Berman's deputy, Audrey Strauss, will serve as acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District. A former senior litigation partner at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson and chief legal counsel to aluminum giant Alcoa, she has a sterling reputation as an experienced and ethical attorney.

"I could leave the district in no better hands than Audrey's," Berman said in a statement. "She is the smartest, most principled, and effective lawyer with whom I have ever had the privilege of working."

Bonus: As a young prosecutor, the Washington Post reported she also once beat Trump's mentor Roy Cohn in a Mafia case. My colleagues at The New York Law Journal also reported that she has donated substantially to Democratic presidential candidates over the years. And since Rob Khuzami stepped down last year, she's been overseeing the SDNY's investigation into Trump's inner circle.

Which all begs the question—at the end of the day, what on earth did Bill Barr accomplish here, except to make himself look bad?

See also: 'Something Stinks': What Attorneys Are Saying About Barr's Move to Oust Berman