Former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara has sounded off on his former boss, President Donald Trump.
Former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara talks about his former boss, President Donald Trump.
NEW YORK (Diya TV) — Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara has gone on a tell-all about his apparently tumultuous relationship with President Donald Trump, saying he “was done with” the leader even before he was handed his walking papers. Bharara said he received a phone call from Trump just two days before he was fired, and did not return the call.
“I was doing everyone a favor by not returning the call. I was doing the President a favor by not returning the call,” Bharara said during a conversation last week with New York University’s School of Law Dean Trevor Morrison.
Now, Bharara has sounded off on another polarizing topic: the firing of former FBI director James Comey.
Bharara, in an op-ed published May 14 in the Washington Post, has called for the appointment of independent counsel to lead the investigation into allegations that Russians tampered with the outcome of last year’s general election.
“Jim Comey was once my boss and remains my friend. I know that many people are mad at him. He has at different times become a cause for people’s frustration and anger on both sides of the aisle. Some of those people may have a point… I am proud to know a man who had the courage to say no to a president,” Bharara wrote.
“And in the tumult of this time, many should be asking, Are there still public servants who are prepared to say no to the president?” he wrote. “Given the manner of Comey’s firing and the pre textual reasons proffered for it, there is no other way,” Bharara added.
He referred to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a former colleague and the man now charged with leading the Russia investigation, as “a respected career prosecutor,” but added the need for a special investigator is only further amplified when taking into consideration reports that White House aides said Rosenstein’s initial recommendation to Trump of axing Comey resulted in his demise.
“Given the manner of Comey’s firing and the pre textual reasons proffered for it, there is no other way,” he wrote. Rosenstein has “mostly deserved the doubts he generated,” Bharara added.
“History will judge this moment,” Bharara said. “It’s not too late to get it right, and justice demands it,” he wrote in closing.
