Preet Bharara firing: Trump pushed out prosecutors to install 'cronies', says Senator Warren

Warren suggests that Preet Bharara was fired because he "had authority over Trump Tower."

Senator Elizabeth Warren on Sunday went on a tweet storm against US President Donald Trump a day after he fired a top federal prosecutor in New York.

Warren suggested that Preet Bharara was fired because he "had authority over Trump Tower."

The progressive senator Elizabeth Warren accused Trump of firing a prominent prosecutor to install "cronies" , warning of "a massive fight" in the Senate over his picks for new U.S. attorneys.

According to The Guardian, Trump fired Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney of the southern district of Manhattan, where the prosecutor had pursued corruption cases against members of both the Republican and Democratic parties. In November, Bharara met with Trump and his nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, and said he had "agreed to stay on" after conversations with both.

 

Bharara was one of 46 U.S. attorneys across the country who had been asked by the Trump administration to resign on Friday afternoon.

He refused to resign, setting up a public stand-off with the Trump administration. A day later, he announced via Twitter that he had been fired.

But, on Friday afternoon, Sessions abruptly ordered 46 prosecutors, nearly all appointees of Barack Obama, to resign "effective immediately".

Bharara refused to resign and was fired, saying in a brief public statement: "One hallmark of justice is absolute independence, and that was my touchstone every day that I served."

Bharara wrote a message, tantalising in its apparent implications but lacking any detail, on the former U.S. attorney's newly active personal Twitter account.

"By the way, now I know what the Moreland Commission must have felt like."

The Moreland Committee was created to investigate corruption in New York state government but was abruptly shut down by governor Andrew Cuomo in 2014.

At the time of his dismissal, Bharara was overseeing separate corruption investigations into the staffs of Cuomo and New York mayor Bill de Blasio. Bharara's tweet seemed to imply political interference by the Trump administration into an investigation by the US attorney's office.