Fired attorney targeted corruption
''Serving my country as US Attorney here for the past seven years will forever be the greatest honour of my professional life, no matter what else I do or how long I live." Preet Bharara, former Manhattan federal prosecutor
UNITED STATES: A Manhattan federal prosecutor who says ‘‘absolute independence’' was his touchstone for more than seven years, as he battled public corruption, announced he was fired yesterday after he refused to resign a day earlier.
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 President Barack Obama should quit.
‘‘I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired,’' Bharara said in the tweet.
In a statement later, he said: ‘‘Serving my country as US attorney here for the past seven years will forever be the greatest honour 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 current deputy US attorney Joon H Kim would serve as acting US attorney. The Justice Department later confirmed Bharara was no longer US attorney but declined to expound.
Just over three months ago, then-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.
Meanwhile, Michigan representative John Conyers, the House judiciary committee’s top Democrat, requested yesterday that the committee receive a summary of probes linked to Trump, whether they touch on his administration, transition, campaign and organisation, ‘‘so that we can understand the full implications of this weekend’s firings’'.
He said he suspected Bharara ’’could be reviewing a range of potential improper activity emanating from Trump Tower and the Trump campaign, as well as entities with financial ties to the president or the Trump organisation’'.
Bharara was appointed by 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 the Obama administration surprised Manhattan prosecutors.
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-attorneygeneral Janet Reno in 1993.
New York Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, said he was ‘‘troubled to learn’' of the resignation demands, particularly of Bharara, since Trump called him in November and assured him he wanted Bharara to remain in place.
Bharara met Trump on November 30, saying afterward he’d been asked to remain in the job. Bharara, once lauded on the cover of Time magazine as the man who is ``busting Wall Street’' after successfully prosecuting 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 recently was 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 Governor Andrew M 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 co-operating and that he and his staff had acted appropriately.
The request for resignations came days after Trump last weekend claimed Obama tapped his telephones during last year’s election. FBI director James Comey privately asked the Justice Department to dispute the claim because he believed the allegations were false. Bharara worked for Comey when he was US attorney in Manhattan under President George W Bush. -AP