Prosecutor overseeing investigations into Trump allies removed from job

US attorney general William Barr has told the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan that President Donald Trump has removed him from the job. The move deepens tensions between the country’s chief law enforcement officer and a high-profile US attorney who had been overseeing investigations of Mr Trump’s allies. On Saturday morning, he showed up to work, telling reporters: “I’m just here to do my job.” In a letter made public by the Justice Department later on Saturday, Mr Barr said he expected to continue speaking with Mr Berman about other possible positions within the department and was surprised by the statement he released. “Your statement also wrongly implies that your continued tenure in the office is necessary to ensure that cases now pending in the Southern District of New York are handled appropriately,” he wrote. The White House announced that Mr Trump was nominating Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Jay Clayton, a well-connected Wall Street lawyer with virtually no experience as a federal prosecutor, for the job. Only days ago, allegations surfaced from former Trump national security adviser John Bolton that the president sought to interfere in an investigation by Mr Berman’s office into the state-owned Turkish bank in an effort to cut deals with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.