Audrey Strauss, the former top deputy to Geoffrey Berman, is set to take over the reins of the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office this week, after her old boss agreed to resign Saturday following a 20-hour standoff with U.S. Attorney General William Barr over his removal.

Berman's initial refusal to step down on Friday night was widely praised over the weekend for helping to secure continuity within the Southern District of New York, an office that has historically prided itself on its independence.

The resolution that took shape on Saturday, with Strauss becoming acting U.S. attorney, was perceived as a retreat for Barr and the Trump administration, which had initially planned to install Craig Carpenito, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey in the post until Berman's successor could secure U.S. Senate confirmation.

Trump has said that he intends to nominate Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to serve as U.S. attorney for the Southern District.

In Strauss, the Southern District gained a leader who is regarded as a titan of the white-collar bar, with deep ties to Berman's office and experience handling sensitive investigations into members of President Donald Trump's inner circle, including Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney who pleaded to criminal tax evasion and campaign-finance violations in 2018.

"She is obviously very familiar with these investigations," said Harry Sandick, a partner at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District, said Sunday.

"She has a fantastic reputation as a lawyer on both sides, as both a prosecutor and defense lawyer," Sandick said.

However, questions still lingered on Sunday about the motivations behind Berman's abrupt removal, as well as further plans at Main Justice to overhaul the leadership of the office.

"If Barr's ultimate goal was to gain control of the office and gain control of the investigations, he hasn't done that yet," said Jaimie Nawaday, a former Southern District prosecutor and partner with Kelley Drye & Warren.

"There is certainly a concession to SDNY between Friday and Saturday," Nawaday said. "I think Berman should feel good about what he achieved. But again, it's for now. I don't have a lot of confidence that this is where the story ends for Barr."

A former top in-house lawyer at Alcoa and senior litigation partner at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson in New York, Strauss was named Berman's second-in-command last March, succeeding Robert Khuzami, who had previously held the post beginning in 2018. Strauss had joined the Southern District in February 2018, when she served as senior counsel to Berman.

Prior to rejoining the U.S. attorney's office, Strauss had worked for six years as aluminum giant Alcoa's chief legal officer. She earlier practiced at New York-headquartered Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson, where she was a litigation partner from 1990 to 2012, and was formerly a partner at Mudge Rose Guthrie & Alexander before joining Fried Frank. At Fried Frank, Strauss was a white-collar defender representing corporations and individuals.

According to the Southern District's website, Strauss served as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1976 to 1983, trying more than 20 cases. She was eventually promoted to chief of appeals in the criminal division and later served as chief of the office's securities and commodities fraud unit, and had also served on the staff for the independent counsel for the Iran-Contra affair.

Law Journal affiliate The National Law Journal reported last year that Strauss had also donated substantially over the years to Democratic presidential candidates, including Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton.

In a statement announcing his resignation on Saturday, Berman said the decision to have Strauss take over as acting U.S. attorney respected "the normal operation of law" in the district, which he said could be left "in no better hands than Audrey's."

"She is the smartest, most principled, and effective lawyer with whom I have ever had the privilege of working," Berman said. "And I know that under her leadership, this office's unparalleled AUSAs, investigators, paralegals, and staff will continue to safeguard the Southern District's enduring tradition of integrity and independence."

Alumni from the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office had expressed surprise and serious concern over the weekend after Barr suddenly announced late Friday night that Berman was "stepping down" after 18 months as U.S. attorney.

Barr simultaneously announced Trump's nomination of Clayton to head the office and said that Carpenito would take over in an acting capacity, starting July 3. According to the Justice Department statement, Carpenito would "work closely with the outgoing United States Attorney to ensure a smooth transition."

The announcement elicited a prompt and defiant response from Berman, who sparked a new crisis in the Justice Department when he said that he had "no intention of resigning" from the post to which he was appointed by the judges of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2018. Berman showed up to work in Lower Manhattan Saturday morning, telling reporters that he was there to do his job. He resigned later in the day, after Barr confirmed that Strauss would serve as the acting U.S. attorney.

In a letter to Berman on Saturday, Barr said Trump had agreed to remove Berman but acknowledged that his former deputy would replace him.

"Unfortunately, with your statement of last night, you have chosen public spectacle over public service," Barr wrote in the letter to Berman. "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."

Trump, speaking to reporters shortly after the letter became public, said he was not involved in any decision to fire Berman.

"That's all up to the attorney general. Attorney General Barr is working on that," Trump said. "That's his department, not my department. But we have a very capable attorney general, so that's really up to him. I'm not involved."

Neither Barr nor Trump has provided the reasons for Berman's ouster.

In his own statement, Carpenito praised Strauss as a "talented and tenacious lawyer" and "someone for whom I have a great deal of respect."

"She will uphold the reputation and legacy of the Southern District and honor its fine public servants," Carpenito said. "I commend the attorney general on his decision to have Audrey Strauss serve in this capacity, and I look forward to continuing to do the job that I love—leading the great men and women of the District of New Jersey."

Jesse Panuccio, who served as the third-ranking Justice Department official during the Trump administration, on Monday defended the decision to remove Berman, saying it was clear that Barr had lost confidence in him.

Under the command structure of the Justice department, Panuccio said, the attorney general "always had the power, by statute, to overrule" a U.S. attorney that he doesn't agree with.

"These are not individual fiefdoms," said Panuccio, now a partner in Boies Schiller Flexner's Washington, D.C., and Florida offices.

Panuccio agreed that Strauss' appointment as acting U.S. attorney could be interpreted as maintaining continuity in the office.

"If the attorney general has permitted a leadership change I have to assume its something he's comfortable with—and an arrangement he can work comfortably with," Panuccio said. "The attorney general has said that change would not affect the outcome of individual cases, and I have no reason to think that's not the case, regardless of who's in charge."

Sandick, meanwhile, said that while concern remained following Berman's ouster, line assistants in the office should "take heart" in Strauss' credentials and the integrity of Southern District ongoing investigations as she assumes leadership of the office on an acting basis.

"If the goal was to stop investigations or intimidate people, it's hard to see how this result advances that goal," he said.

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