WALKING TALL
Preet defies Trump, gets canned by Prez to go out as independent U.S. prosecutor
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara (r.) wouldn’t go quietly as the New York crimefighter refused to hand in his resignation Saturday.
President Trump — rather than deliver an “Apprentice”-style firing — left the lawman to announce his own demise by using The Donald’s favorite medium, Twitter.
“Today, I was fired from my position as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York,” Bharara tweeted.
WITH A BIZARRE mix of presidential muscle and reality show finality, the White House sent crime-busting federal prosecutor Preet Bharara packing.
President Trump — rather than deliver an “Apprentice”-style firing — left the axed U.S. attorney to announce that his acclaimed run atop the nation’s No. 1 federal court district had reached an abrupt end.
“Today, I was fired from my position as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York,” Bharara said Saturday afternoon.
“Serving my country as U.S. 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.”
His interim replacement is former Deputy U.S. Attorney Joon Kim, a Harvard Law School graduate. He joined Bharara’s office in April 2013 after seven years in private practice.
A Democratic Party source indicated the Bharara ouster was political payback from Trump against Sen. Chuck Schumer. The New York Democrat and Trump bumped heads recently over the President’s alleged ties to Russia and his Supreme Court nominee, Denver-based 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch.
Schumer and other top Democrats have “done everything they can do to sabotage (Trump), and they finally said, ‘Enough, ’ ” the source said.
Bharara, whose office brought down crooked politicians from both parties, leveled a subtle parting shot at Trump. Just three months ago, the President-elect assured the federal prosecutor that his job was safe.
“One hallmark of justice is absolute independence, and that was my touchstone every day that I served,” said Bharara.
Fellow New York prosecutors past and present criticized the White House for giving the boot to the 48-year-old Bharara.
“The U.S. attorney position shouldn’t be a political football,” former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau told the Daily News. “It sends the wrong message when someone in that position is summarily fired.”
Morgenthau resigned his job as Manhattan U.S. attorney in 1969 in a similar dispute with the Nixon White House.
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman expressed his admiration for Bharara and praised the prosecutor’s work before blasting the White House.
“President Trump’s abrupt and unexplained decision to summarily remove over 40 U.S. attorneys has once again caused chaos in the federal government,” said Schneiderman.
Schumer issued a statement that steered clear of mentioning Trump while stressing Bharara’s accomplishments since his appointment by President Barack Obama.
“His relentless drive to root out public corruption, lock up terrorists, take on Wall Street and stand up for what is right should serve as a model for all U.S. attorneys across the country,” Schumer said.
The first hint that something was amiss came on Thursday when Bharara’s office received a call from Trump’s assistant requesting that the Manhattan prosecutor call the White House, the New York Times reported.
Bharara never returned the call. Due to protocols governing a president’s direct contact with federal prosecutors, Bharara instead reached out to an adviser to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Times reported.
Bharara explained that the President had tried to contact him and that he wasn’t returning the call because of the protocols.
It was not clear Saturday why the President wanted to speak with Bharara — to alert him of his impending pink slip or to discuss another matter. Bharara, one of 46 U.S. attorneys asked to submit their resignations Friday, apparently forced Sessions (photo inset) to fire him rather than walk away quietly. The Justice Department, even after the Bharara statement, confirmed only that he was no longer the U.S. attorney. A spokeswoman declined to discuss any particulars or provide any details of the Saturday sacking. Bharara sent first word of the firing via his Twitter account. The Trump administration announced the judicial housecleaning without warning Friday.
Bha rara, a corruption-busting prosecutor whose office convicted former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) and exAssembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), told top aides in his office Friday that he would not step down.
He was probing Mayor de Blasio’s administration and allegations of pay-to-play, as well as how Fox News Channel structured settlements of claims brought by network employees.
Bharara was asked to stay on the job at a Trump Tower meeting with the President-elect in November. Sessions made the same request, Bharara told reporters after the Manhattan get-together.
Bharara took over the office in 2009, quickly becoming a familiar presence to New Yorkers as his office began racking up convictions.