📰 The Halkbank Affair: When Politics collided with Prosecution and Power.
Inside the story of how a Turkish state-owned bank, a defiant U.S. attorney, and a presidential administration turned a criminal case into a constitutional crisis.
⚖️ The Story Begins: The Bank That Defied Sanctions
In 2019, the Southern District of New York (SDNY) indicted Halkbank. It is a Turkish state-owned lender. The indictment was for allegedly helping Iran evade U.S. sanctions. They accomplished this by laundering billions of dollars through gold trades and fake humanitarian transactions.
The case was explosive. It not only involved violations of American foreign policy. It also implicated close allies of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He is a leader known to have a direct line to then-President Donald Trump.
🧩 The DOJ’s Dilemma: Politics Meets Prosecution
As investigators dug deeper, reports surfaced. They revealed that Trump’s Department of Justice tried to block or delay the Halkbank prosecution.
Trump allegedly told Erdoğan he would “take care of” the matter.
Attorney General William Barr and other senior officials reportedly pressured the SDNY to soften or stop the case.
When SDNY refused, tensions boiled over.
Then-U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, a Republican and former Trump ally, refused to drop the prosecution. “This is not how we do things in the Southern District.” An official reportedly told the DOJ this statement. This quote became the headline of Adam Klasfeld’s viral piece in Law & Crime (October 29, 2020).
🔥 The Firing Heard Round the Courts
By mid-2020, as the Halkbank case advanced, Berman was abruptly fired. The White House claimed he had resigned; Berman publicly countered that he had not.
The episode triggered a legal and political uproar. Observers accused the Trump administration of retaliation against a prosecutor protecting the independence of the justice system.
The move was so controversial that even career DOJ lawyers privately expressed concern that political influence had reached unprecedented levels.
🌍 Turkey, Sanctions, and Geopolitics
Why would a U.S. president intervene in such a case? Analysts point to several motives:
Turkey’s strategic role in NATO, bordering Syria and Iran.
Trump’s personal and financial ties to Turkish business interests.
The U.S. administration’s frequent attempts to curry favor with Erdoğan.
What looked like a routine sanctions-evasion case became a flashpoint for international corruption and influence peddling.
🏛️ The Legal Fallout
After years of motions and appeals, the courts delivered landmark rulings. The Second Circuit ruled in 2024. Halkbank cannot claim sovereign immunity in U.S. criminal court. In 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn the lower court’s ruling. This allowed the prosecution to move forward.
These decisions set a precedent — state-owned companies are not above the law when engaging in commercial or sanctions-evasion activities.
🧠 Why It Matters
The Halkbank case isn’t just about one bank. It’s about:
Whether the U.S. Justice Department serves justice — or politics.
How international allies can exploit personal relationships at the highest levels.
And how independent prosecutors defend the line between government and corruption.
Geoffrey Berman stood against political interference. His stand reaffirmed an old truth: In America, justice is supposed to wear a blindfold — not a campaign button.
⚖️ The Aftermath
Today, the Halkbank prosecution continues in lower courts.
Berman, now a private citizen, released a book in 2022 titled Holding the Line, detailing his confrontation with the DOJ.