Top US prosecutor Bharara is fired after refusing to quit
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US Attorney Preet Bharara of New York said on Saturday he had been fired after he defied a Justice Department request to resign as the Trump administration cleared out federal prosecutors who served under former president Barack Obama.
“I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired,” Bharara wrote on Twitter.
Bharara, whose jurisdiction as US attorney for the Southern District of New York included Manhattan, has handled a string of high-profile corruption and white-collar criminal cases. He was one of 46 Obama administration holdovers who were asked to resign by the Justice Department on Friday.
Like all of the nation’s 93 US attorneys, Bharara is a political appointee who is typically replaced when a new president takes office.
Bharara told reporters in November that Trump had asked him to stay on, and a source familiar with the situation told Reuters that he was confused by the Justice Department’s request that he step down.
Bharara’s office and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.
Attorney-General Jeff Sessions’s decision to replace so many sitting attorneys at once has raised questions about whether that would hinder the Trump administration’s ability to enforce the nation’s laws. Career attorneys will carry on that work until new US attorneys are put in place, the Justice Department said.
Bharara’s Manhattan office handles some of the most critical business and criminal cases passing through the federal judicial system. He has been overseeing a probe into New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fund-raising.