Preet Bharara, one of the best-known United States Attorneys, a man well-reputed for his anti-corruption work, said he would not resign as he and 45 other federal prosecutors were asked to do by Attorney General Jefferson B. Sessions III Friday. Bharara implicitly dared Pr*sident Trump to fire him. And that is what has now happened.
Bharara met under friendly circumstances with the pr*sident in Trump Tower last month. And in November, a week after the election, Trump gave him a personal thumbs-up for staying in the job. Not that whiplash is unfamiliar to those people having any dealings with the regime.
Last May, Bharara was the subject of a long feature in The New Yorker, which noted:
As the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara runs one of the largest and most respected offices of federal prosecutors in the country. Under his leadership, the office has charged dozens of Wall Street figures with insider trading, and has upended the politics of New York State, by convicting the leaders of both houses of the state legislature. Last week, Bharara announced charges against a hundred and twenty alleged street-gang members in the Bronx, in what was said to be the largest gang takedown in New York history. [...]
Before Bharara became known as the scourge of insider trading—a 2012 Time cover story called him the “top cop” of Wall Street—he gained attention for the cases he did not bring against the financial industry. He took office in 2009, at the height of the mortgage crisis, and the Southern District, along with the Justice Department, in Washington, conducted investigations of the major firms and individuals involved in the financial collapse. No leading executive was prosecuted. Bernie Sanders, the Presidential candidate, says in his stump speech, “It is an outrage that not one major Wall Street executive has gone to jail for causing the near-collapse of the economy. The failure to prosecute the crooks on Wall Street for their illegal and reckless behavior is a clear indictment of our broken criminal-justice system.”
In a conversation in his office, Bharara rejected the critique. Without going into specifics, he said that his team had looked at Wall Street executives and found no evidence of criminal behavior.
Today, The New York Times reported:
Mr. Bharara, whose office is overseeing a case against a top aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and an investigation into people close to Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, has told several people that he did not hand in a resignation on Friday, as he was ordered to do by the acting deputy attorney general, Dana Boente.
He also does not intend to do so over the weekend, he said in conversations with associates, a move that could force the hand of the Trump administration.
So far, he is the only one of the 46 federal prosecutors asked to resign indicating that being fired is the only way they will leave their posts.