BHARARA WAS PROBING TRUMP CABINET
NO LINK TO DISMISSAL Report says his termination not connected to investigation into Tom Price
WASHINGTON: Preet Bharara, the former US attorney for the southern district of New York, was investigating stock market trades by a member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet at the time of his firing last week, a news report said.
But ProPublica, the news publication that reported the investigation first based on an unidentified source “familiar with the office”, did not link it to Bharara’s firing, which came after he refused to resign as ordered by President Donald Trump.
Bharara’s office, which has jurisdiction over Wall Street and thus the stock market, was investigating Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price, who was attacked, during his confirmation hearing, for trading in stocks of health-related companies as he also worked for or against related legislations, as a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Georgia, ProPublica reported.
Price insisted his trades were above board, and was subsequently confirmed by a vote along party lines in the Republican-controlled Senate in February. He is now leading efforts to repeal and replace former president Barack Obama’s healthcare law. Bharara was asked to step down last Friday along with 45 other US attorneys appointed by Obama, as has been the practice for decades. The Indian-born prosecutor refused to quit, and waited to be fired.
The Trump administration never assigned a specific reason for Bharara’s firing, which came as a surprise after he had been asked by Trump, as presidentelect last year, to stay on.
The White House, the justice department, the health and human services department and Bharara’s erstwhile office refused to comment on the report.
Bharara has not talked about his firing or the reasons for it since, but he did tweet about the Moreland Commission that New York governor Andrew Cuomo had appointed to investigate corruption in his government, but hastily disbanded when it seemed getting too close to his office.
“By the way, now I know what the Moreland Commission must have felt like,” Bharara tweeted.