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  • Holding the Line

  • Inside the Nation's Preeminent US Attorney's Office and Its Battle with the Trump Justice Department
  • Written by: Geoffrey Berman
  • Narrated by: Geoffrey Berman
  • Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (23 ratings)

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Holding the Line

Written by: Geoffrey Berman
Narrated by: Geoffrey Berman
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Publisher's Summary

"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

"A cautionary tale about how political forces can undermine the quest for justice." - Barbara McQuade, The Washington Post

The gripping and explosive memoir of serving as US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, in the face of the Justice Department’s attempts to protect Trump’s friends and punish his enemies.

Ascending to the leadership role of US Attorney for the Southern District, which includes Manhattan and several counties to the north, is a capstone to any legal career: it entails guiding a team of the best lawyers in America in selecting and winning cases that often have global import. Geoffrey Berman was honored to be tapped for the job by Donald Trump in 2018. The manner in which Trump had dispatched his predecessor Preet Bharara was troubling, but the institution was fabled for its independence. Surely he could manage.

So began one of the most tumultuous two-and-a-half-year stretches in the over two-hundred-thirty year history of the office. Almost immediately, Berman found himself pushing back against the Trump Justice Department’s blatant efforts to bring weak cases against political foes and squash worthy cases that threatened to tarnish allies and Trump himself. When Bill Barr became attorney general, Berman hoped and believed things would get better, but instead they got much worse. The heart of Holding the Line is his never-before-told account of the lengths Barr went to in corrupting the independence of the office, and the lengths Berman had to go in preserving it. Finally, Trump and Barr, fed up with Berman’s principles, summarily fired him, though he refused to go quietly and prevented Barr from installing someone who might be more compliant. Berman’s determined defense of the values of prosecutorial independence, without fear or favor, made him a hero to everyone who shares those values.

Holding the Line also relates the remarkable casework of the Southern District in Berman’s time there, including taking down notorious sex traffickers Jeffrey Epstein and Lawrence Ray, Big Pharma executives, and vicious criminal syndicates, and repatriating Nazi-looted art. Riveting in themselves, these stories showcase the esprit de corps that makes the Southern District so special, and the stakes Berman felt in protecting its integrity against all foes, up to and including the US attorney general and the president of the United States.

©2022 Geoffrey Berman (P)2022 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

"A cautionary tale about how political forces can undermine the quest for justice." (Barbara McQuade, The Washington Post)

"A terrifying book...The Justice Department needs to contend with Berman’s record of what happened to him in a much more serious way than they have, because that happened inside the Justice Department in a way that should never happen again and is likely to happen again now that we know that Trump was able to get away with it with no consequences. (Rachel Maddow, The Ezra Klein Show)

What listeners say about Holding the Line

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Very enjoyable.

Valuable insight into SDNY and unfortunate meddling by Dept. of Justice. Don’t mix politics and the law.

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SDNY Berman

Well written, does not leave any ambiguous subject undiscussed.
Well narrated, strong but not overpowering with pauses at the right speed.

Many different personnel notes without interfering with the storey

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How about patting yourself on the back Geoffrey??

I tried to keep an open mind while listening to this book because he was the Head of the SDNY! But, after all of the Qualified Heads of the SDNY were fired by the most corrupt man to ever hold the Office of the POTUS! This so called holding the Line SDNY Head was just another BagMan for Trump. This whole book was just a “Big Old Pat on his own Back” over and over! If he is so righteous and stood up to AG. Barr what happened to when they screwed over Michael Cohen and gave him 48 hours to plead guilty, or they were going to bring up Michael Cohen’s wife on a shit load of corrupt charges??

In my opinion save your money or credit and get a different Book such as Maggie Habberman, (NYT Reporter) Confidence Man in October at least it will not be a book to attempt to whitewash another TRUMP Administration’s Lackey!

Nothing to Read or Listen to hear with “Holding The Line” It should have been called, “Holding Another Line, of Coke” because he had to be high when he wrote this crap? #JustSaying #saveyourmoney #IAmSendingMyBookBack

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1 person found this helpful