New York/Washington: Wall Street enforcer Preet Bharara may be forced out as the US attorney in Manhattan despite assurances he said he had received from the incoming Trump administration that he would remain in the job.
Attorney general Jeff Sessions on Friday abruptly asked for the resignations of 46 US attorneys, all those remaining who had served under former President Barack Obama. Although most of the holdovers were expected to leave at some point, Bharara said shortly after meeting with Sessions and then president-elect Donald Trump last November that he was asked to stay on in the new administration and had agreed to do so.
A Justice Department statement on the request for resignations didn’t address whether all would be accepted or some held for later use, allowing for continuity on important investigations. After a similar request to State Department political appointees, the resignations were accepted immediately.
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Sessions’ request for resignations on Friday didn’t specify exit dates. The US attorney in Brooklyn, Robert Capers, and Paul Fishman of New Jersey said in separate statements that they had been told to resign effective Friday.
The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, said the attorney general’s move to purge US prosecutors would interrupt investigations and hinder the department’s work. “While it’s true that presidents from both parties made their own choices for US attorney positions across the country, they have always done so in an orderly fashion that doesn’t put ongoing investigations at risk,” he said in a statement.
Trump declined to accept the resignations of Dana Boente, a US prosecutor in Virginia who’s currently acting deputy attorney general, and Rod Rosenstein of Maryland, Trump’s pick to become deputy attorney general, Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said in email.
Pending probes
It’s unclear whether Bharara might be asked to complete some of his cases before leaving office. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the request for resignations applied to “all Senate-confirmed US attorneys.” An administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said all US attorneys were being asked to submit resignations and that they were all expected to be accepted.
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“Until the new US attorneys are confirmed, the dedicated career prosecutors in our US attorney’s offices will continue the great work of the department,” Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement.
If Bharara submits his resignation and it’s accepted, some of the most prominent and difficult Justice Department investigations could be disrupted. They include inquiries into Deutsche Bank AG’s handling of “mirror trades” that helped Russian clients convert rubles into Western currency, a high-profile securities fraud case against Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and political corruption cases involving New York mayor Bill de Blasio and aides to New York governor Andrew Cuomo.
Bharara had been heralded by Republicans and Democrats for aggressively prosecuting corruption in Albany. One of the reasons he may have been asked to stay was because of his pursuit of several political corruption cases of Democratic state officials.
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While incoming presidents have changed out US attorneys before—most notably Bill Clinton—the latest purge comes in a politically charged atmosphere as Democrats call for a special counsel to look into the Trump camp’s relationships with Russia during the presidential campaign.
Calls for ‘purge’
Sessions, who has recused himself from the Russia matter, on Thursday told a conservative radio host that he was open to naming a special counsel to look into the Justice Department under Obama. Later in the day, Sean Hannity of Fox News called for the Justice Department to be swept of Obama holdovers. “It’s time for the Trump administration to purge these saboteurs before it’s too late,” Hannity said.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and a member of the Judiciary Committee, said she was surprised by the Sessions’ request. “Under previous administrations, orderly transitions allowed US attorneys to leave gradually as their replacements were chosen,” Feinstein said in a statement. “This was done to protect the independence of our prosecutors and avoid disrupting ongoing federal cases.” Bloomberg
