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Preet Bharara Is Fired After Refusing to Step Down as U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara Is Fired After Refusing to Step Down as U.S. Attorney
(about 3 hours later)
Preet Bharara, the Manhattan federal prosecutor who was asked by President Trump to remain in his post shortly after the election, was fired on Saturday after he refused an order to submit his resignation. The call to Preet Bharara’s office from President Trump’s assistant came on Thursday. Would Mr. Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, please call back? He did not.
Mr. Bharara’s dismissal capped a brief but highly unusual showdown in which a political appointee installed by Mr. Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, declined an order to submit a resignation. The following day, Mr. Bharara was one of 46 United States attorneys appointed by President Barack Obama asked to resign — and to immediately clean out their offices. The request took many in his office by surprise because, in a meeting in November, Mr. Bharara was asked by the then-president-elect to stay on.
He told the world what had happened on Twitter. Mr. Bharara refused to resign. On Saturday, he announced on Twitter that he had been fired.
“I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life,” Mr. Bharara wrote on his personal feed, which he set up in the past two weeks. It was unclear whether the president’s call on Thursday was an effort to explain his change of heart about keeping Mr. Bharara or to discuss another matter. The White House would not comment on Saturday.
Mr. Bharara was among 46 holdover Obama appointees who were called by the acting deputy attorney general on Friday and told to immediately submit their resignations and plan to clear out of their offices. However, there are protocols governing a president’s direct contact with federal prosecutors. According to two people with knowledge of the events who were not authorized to discuss sensitive conversations publicly, Mr. Bharara notified an adviser to the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, that the president had tried to contact him and that he would not respond because of those protocols.
But Mr. Bharara, who was called to Trump Tower for a meeting with the incoming president in late November, declined to do so. Mr. Bharara was a highly public prosecutor who relished the spotlight throughout more than seven years in office. He pursued several high-profile cases involving Wall Street, and he was in the midst of investigating fund-raising by Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York, and former top aides to the governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, who are both Democrats. It was not immediately clear how his departure would affect those cases and others that were pending.
Mr. Bharara’s office is overseeing a pending case against former close aides and associates of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and an inquiry into people close to Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, who has been a target of Mr. Trump’s ire as he has positioned himself as a vocal opponent of the president’s on the left. Mr. Bharara stayed quiet on Saturday until early afternoon. Then, on his personal Twitter feed, which he set up eight days ago, he wrote: “I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired.” Referring to the Southern District of New York, he continued, “Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life.”
The announcement that Mr. Bharara had been told to resign created feelings of whiplash inside his office, according to two people familiar with the views of current prosecutors. One of the people described an oddly subdued reaction mixed with anxiety as the events unfolded. “You have a sense of how it’s going to end and it’s not going to end well,” this person said. Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to characterize Mr. Bharara’s departure that way, saying only, “I can confirm that Mr. Bharara is no longer the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.”
In November, Mr. Bharara met at Trump Tower with the president-elect and several of his advisers, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, according to two people briefed on that discussion who requested anonymity to describe a private meeting with Mr. Trump. All presidents choose their own appointees for United States attorney positions and almost always ask those appointed by their predecessors to leave. But the process under Mr. Trump was unusually abrupt, and it was yet another rocky encounter between the Trump administration and the nation’s law enforcement apparatus.
At the meeting, according to those briefed, Mr. Trump urged Mr. Bharara to remain in the job. Mr. Bharara said after the meeting, “I agreed to stay on.” Mr. Bharara’s job had appeared to be secure. In November, he met at Trump Tower with the president-elect and several of his advisers, including Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, according to two people briefed on that discussion who requested anonymity.
Mr. Bharara’s dismissal came about a year into his office’s investigation of Mr. de Blasio’s campaign fund-raising, an inquiry that is examining whether the mayor or his aides traded beneficial acts for political donations. And Mr. Bharara leaves his post at a sensitive juncture: Mr. de Blasio was interviewed recently by prosecutors who appeared to be in the final stages of determining whether to seek charges in the matter. At the meeting, according to those briefed, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Bharara to remain in the job, which Mr. Bharara relayed to reporters and television cameras in the Trump Tower lobby.
There is little precedent for Mr. Bharara’s refusal to resign; President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush also dismissed holdover political appointees in the Justice Department. Then came the order to resign on Friday, creating what was described as a feeling of whiplash in the prosecutor’s Manhattan office. One person familiar with the views of current prosecutors described an oddly subdued reaction mixed with anxiety as the events unfolded. “You have a sense of how it’s going to end, and it’s not going to end well,” the person said.
But the hasty nature of the dismissals, combined with Mr. Trump’s previous request of Mr. Bharara that he stay on, made this an unusual episode. But Mr. Bharara, unlike his fellow United States attorneys, publicly refused to leave. He gave no public statement citing a policy or legal issue that had affected his decision to refuse the resignation order.
It was unclear how many of the 46 holdovers had submitted resignations. By way of contrast, Mr. Bharara’s colleague Robert L. Capers, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, announced his resignation on Friday afternoon. It was unclear how many of the 46 holdovers had submitted resignations. Mr. Bharara’s colleague Robert L. Capers, the United States attorney in Brooklyn, announced his resignation on Friday afternoon.
The White House has said little about the timing of the mass push for resignations, other than insisting it was not a response to a call for a purge that Mr. Trump saw on Fox News, where one host, Sean Hannity, urged the president to clean house at the Justice Department. Two White House officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid offending the president, said the promise to keep Mr. Bharara on was a product of a chaotic transition process and Mr. Trump’s desire at the time to try to work with Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, with whom Mr. Bharara is close. The relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has since soured.
Two White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the promise to keep Mr. Bharara on was a product of a chaotic transition process and Mr. Trump’s desire at the time to try to work with Senator Chuck Schumer, with whom Mr. Bharara is close. The relationship between Mr. Trump and Mr. Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has since soured. It was Dana Boente, the acting deputy attorney general, who called Mr. Bharara on Saturday. According to a Justice Department official, Mr. Boente told Mr. Bharara that he was one of the 46 United States attorneys being told to resign.
Phil Singer, a former aide to Mr. Schumer and a Democratic strategist, called it “absurd” to suggest that Mr. Bharara’s firing was meant to punish Mr. Schumer. Mr. Bharara, the official said, replied that he that was in conflict with Mr. Trump asking him to stay on. Mr. Boente reiterated that Mr. Bharara was being asked to resign, and Mr. Bharara said that he was interpreting that as being fired. Mr. Boente then said again that the department was asking him to step down, according to the official.
But Mr. Trump has felt under siege over leaks springing from the vast federal bureaucracy he now oversees, and White House officials said that removing Mr. Bharara and the others was meant as a first step toward purging Obama appointees. Mr. Bharara’s office is overseeing the case against the former aides to Mr. Cuomo and the inquiry into fund-raising by Mr. de Blasio, who has been a target of Mr. Trump’s ire as he has positioned himself as a vocal opponent of the president’s on the left.
Before Mr. Bharara was fired on Saturday, one of New York’s top elected Republicans expressed support for him. His office is also overseeing an investigation into whether Fox News, which is owned by the media magnate Rupert Murdoch, failed to properly alert shareholders of settlements with female employees who had accused the channel’s former chief, Roger Ailes, of sexual harassment.
“Good for Preet, he is doing the job he was appointed to do!” Assemblyman Brian M. Kolb, the State Assembly minority leader, wrote on Twitter. The investigation of Mr. de Blasio’s campaign fund-raising has been going on for about a year and is examining whether the mayor or his aides traded beneficial city action for political donations. Mr. de Blasio was interviewed recently by prosecutors who appeared to be in the final stages of determining whether to seek charges in the matter. Mr. de Blasio’s press secretary has said that the mayor has cooperated with Mr. Bharara’s inquiry and that he and his staff had “acted appropriately and well within the law.”
Assemblyman Steven F. McLaughlin, a Republican who was fond of calling for “draining the swamp” in Albany long before Mr. Trump embraced that expression, had urged Mr. Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reconsider on Friday. White House officials have said little about the timing of the mass push for resignations, other than insisting it had not been a response to a call for a purge on Fox News, where one host, Sean Hannity, urged the president to clean house at the Justice Department.
“Big mistake,” he wrote on Twitter. Phil Singer, a former aide to Mr. Schumer and a Democratic strategist, called it “absurd” to suggest that Mr. Bharara’s firing had been meant to punish Mr. Schumer. He noted that any investigation involving Trump Tower would fall within the purview of Mr. Bharara’s office.
The Southern District of New York, which Mr. Bharara has overseen since 2009, encompasses Manhattan, Mr. Trump’s home before he was elected president, as well as the Bronx, Westchester, and other counties north of New York City. The Southern District of New York, which Mr. Bharara has overseen since 2009, encompasses Manhattan, Mr. Trump’s home before he was elected president, as well as the Bronx, Westchester County and other counties north of New York City.
The Thursday afternoon phone call from the Oval Office was a curious sidelight to the fast-moving events. Mr. Trump’s assistant asked the prosecutor to return the call. Before doing so, Mr. Bharara called Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff, Jody Hunt, to alert the Justice Department to the call and express concern about contacts between presidents and federal prosecutors.
Aides to Mr. Trump did not respond to three emails seeking comment about the nature of Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Bharara.