A New York federal prosecutor who says “absolute independence” was his touchstone for more than seven years as he battled public corruption announced he was fired Saturday after he refused a day earlier to resign.
Preet Bharara, 48, revealed his firing on his personal Twitter account after it became widely known hours earlier that he did not intend to step down in response to US Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ request that leftover appointees of former US president Barack Obama quit.
“I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired,” Bharara tweeted.
Photo: Reuters
“Serving my country as US Attorney here for the past seven years will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life, no matter what else I do or how long I live. One hallmark of justice is absolute independence, and that was my touchstone every day that I served,” he said in a later statement.
He said current US Deputy Attorney Joon Kim would serve as acting US attorney for the southern district of New York.
The US Department of Justice late on Saturday confirmed Bharara was no longer a US attorney, but declined to expound.
A little more than three months ago, then-US president elect Donald Trump asked Bharara to remain on the job and Bharara told reporters after the Trump Tower meeting that he had agreed to do so.
Bharara was appointed by then-US president Barack Obama in 2009. In frequent public appearances, Bharara has decried public corruption after successfully prosecuting more than a dozen state lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans alike.
Sessions’ decision to include Bharara’s name on the list of 46 resignations of holdovers from Obama’s administration surprised prosecutors in Manhattan, New York.
While it is customary for a new president to replace virtually all of the 93 US attorneys, it often occurs at a slower pace. Sessions lost his position as US attorney for the southern district of Alabama in a similar sweep by then-US attorney general Janet Reno in 1993.
Robert Morgenthau, a Democratic US attorney in Manhattan, famously held out for nearly a year after Republican former US president Richard Nixon’s 1969 inauguration, saying he needed to see some important cases through.
He ultimately left in January 1970, after the White House declared he was being replaced and announced a nominee.
New York Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, said in a statement on Friday that he was “troubled to learn” of the resignation demands, particularly of Bharara, since Trump called him in November last year and assured him that he wanted Bharara to remain in place.
Bharara, once lauded on the cover of Time magazine as the man “busting Wall Street” after he successfully prosecuted dozens of insider traders, has in recent years gone after more than a dozen state officeholders — including New York’s two most powerful lawmakers.
It also was recently revealed that his office is investigating the financial terms of settlements of sexual-harassment claims against Fox News by its employees.
The request from Sessions came as Bharara’s office is prosecuting former associates of Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in a bribery case. Also, prosecutors recently interviewed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio as part of a probe into his fundraising.
The mayor’s press secretary has said the mayor is cooperating and that he and his staff had acted appropriately.
Annemarie McAvoy, a former Brooklyn federal prosecutor, said it was not surprising Trump might want Bharara gone since there was a good chance any subpoena seeking information about Trump campaign links to Russians would go through his office.
She said it was also possible Trump wanted “to take out as many people as they can in the prior administration given the leaks and problems that they’re having.”
Last week, the quick-witted Bharara initiated a new personal Twitter feed and sent an ominous message in which he linked an AP video of a US Senate hearing focusing on whether federal prosecutors were fired for political reasons.
“This Senate hearing on political interference @DOJ was 10 yrs ago today,” Bharara wrote. “Is that me in the background? Boy I’ve aged.”
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