PREETY HAPPY
Xmas comes early for de Blasio as Trump fires foe Bharara
Crooked pols, rejoice! Crusading Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara (left) was fired by President Trump on Saturday, giving a brief sigh of “release” to politicians he’s targeted with his investigations, including Mayor de Blasio, Gov. Cuomo and possibly, sources said, Trump himself.
Crooked pols, shady Wall Streeters and America-hating terrorists had reason to cheer Saturday when the Trump administration fired one of the nation’s most feared prosecutors.
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara got his walking papers after a defiant but brief standoff that began Friday when he refused a resignation order from his immediate supervisor, Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired,” Bharara tweeted at 2:29 p.m. Saturday. “Being the US Attorney in SDNY [the Southern District of New York] will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life.”
“One hallmark of justice is absolute independence, and that was my touchstone every day that I served,” he said in a follow-up statement.
Mayor de Blasio might be forgiven a moment of schadenfreude over the firing, since Hizzoner and his associates have been grilled by Bharara’s prosecutors.
So might Gov. Cuomo. A former Cuomo aide and six associates face corruption charges over a bribery probe involving the state’s Buffalo Billion plan to rejuvenate the upstate economy.
President Trump himself may also have cause to be relieved to see Bharara gone. A law-enforcement source noted that Bharara likely would have been involved in any investigation over Trump’s allegation that former President Barack Obama ordered “wires tapped” at Trump Tower during the presidential campaign.
Bharara was blindsided Friday when the Justice Department ordered 46 US attorneys appointed by Obama to submit letters of resignation.
Bharara had reason to think his job was safe.
Trump had summoned him to Trump Tower in November to discuss his future in the new administration. The then-president-elect even sought Sen. Charles Schumer’s advice on whether Bharara should stay on.
After the meeting, Bharara told reporters that he expected to “continue to work at the Southern District.”
But his dogged reputation and independent streak likely doomed him among Trump’s inner circle, sources said.
“Preet is too much about Preet,” one Trump insider said Sessions complained in pushing for the firing.
Schumer’s behavior may have been a factor, said sources. They believed Trump might have turned on Bharara because Schumer insisted Sessions resign over reports that the attorney general met with the Russian ambassador during the presidential campaign but testified to a Senate committee that he had not.
“They wouldn’t drop Preet unless it’s for partisan reasons,” said one source close to the White House. “Sessions insisted. It’s just politics.”
And the president’s allegation via Twitter last weekend that Obama had bugged Trump Tower may have factored into Bharara’s firing, sources say.
Any FBI surveillance on Trump campaign staffers’ ties to Russia could fall under Bharara’s jurisdiction.
“His track record of taking an investigation wherever it goes, no matter how high — many people wonder whether the White House is trying to take him off the field,” said one source close to Bharara.
“If there’s one person who strikes fear into the hearts of elected officials, it’s Preet.”
Another motive for Bharara’s firing might be a recent powwow between Trump and hedgefund billionaire Steve Cohen.
The Showtime TV series “Billions” is taken by many as a fictionalized version of Bharara’s investigation of alleged insider trading by Cohen’s hedge fund.
Cohen and Trump recently bumped into each other at Trump’s members-only golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla., where they asked to be left alone for a private talk, a person with knowledge of the meeting told The Post.
People familiar with the meeting wonder whether Bharara’s name came up.
Cohen was not charged with wrongdoing, but Bharara brought a criminal case against the $13 billion hedge fund in 2013, calling SAC Capital Management “a magnet for market cheaters.”
Cohen had to agree to return outside investors’ money.
A spokesman for Cohen didn’t return a request for comment.
A White House spokeswoman said, “We do not disclose details of private conversations.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred questions about Bharara’s firing to the department, whose spokeswoman did not return a call.
Members of New York’s political class were regular targets of Bharara, his investigators and his prosecutors.
Former state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos — once two of the three most powerful men in state government — may serve long prison terms they can attribute to Bharara’s probing.
Among the terrorists Bharara targeted was Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a Kuwaiti-born cleric and Osama bin Laden adviser who is serving life in prison.
And Bharara successfully earned 85 straight convictions for insider trading from 2009 to 2014 before finally losing a case.
De Blasio, under probe for allegedly trading favors for campaign donations, declined to comment on Bharara’s dismissal.
Schumer, who once employed Bharara as his chief counsel, hailed his “relentless drive.”
New administrations typically clear out holdover US Attorneys.
In 1993, then-Attorney General Janet Reno demanded that all 93 US attorneys step down three months into President Bill Clinton’s first term. Presidents George W. Bush and Obama tried to stagger the prosecutorial layoffs over a few months.
Sessions simply wanted to clean house now that he is in charge, said two sources close to the White House.