Did Preet Bharara resign or get fired?
He says it was the latter.
On Saturday, the outspoken U.S. attorney from the Southern District of New York said he was fired after refusing to resign, as requested a day earlier by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions sought the resignation of dozens of U.S. attorneys appointed by President Barack Obama.
"Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life," tweeted Bharara, who had served since 2009.
In November, Bharara, 48, had visited with President-elect Donald Trump in New York. After the meeting, Bharara told reporters Trump had asked him to remain in his post under the new administration.
"The president-elect asked _ presumably because he's a New Yorker and is aware of the great work that our office has done over the past seven years _ asked to meet with me to discuss whether or not I'd be prepared to stay on as the United States attorney to do the work we have done, independently, without fear or favor for the last seven years," he said at the time.
Yet the order from Sessions on Friday affected 46 U.S. attorneys nationwide, including Bharara. (Forty-seven others have already stepped aside.) In total, 93 U.S. attorneys are the top federal prosecutors in 94 districts. (Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands share a federal prosecutor.)
A spokeswoman for Sessions, Sarah Isgur Flores, said in a statement that Sessions sought the resignations "to ensure a smooth transition" to the Trump administration.
It is not unusual for a new administration to seek the dismissal of political appointees, particularly those of a different party.
In March 1993, then-Attorney General Janet Reno sought the resignations of U.S. attorneys appointed by President George H.W. Bush, a move that sparked intense criticism from conservative commentators.
Still, attorneys general under Obama and former President George W. Bush generally tried to stagger departures over a few months.
During his tenure, Bharara earned a reputation as crusader in the fight against corruption.
In 2015, Bharara led the case against former Democratic New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who was convicted of charges that he traded favors in exchange for $5 million and then lied about it. Bharara and his team said Silver passed tax-abatement and rent-control legislation that favored developers while some of New York's biggest developers hired a small law firm that secretly sent $700,000 in fees to the then-speaker. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Last year, Bharara 's office began investigating New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. The investigation centers on whether de Blasio or members of his administration traded beneficial city action for donations to his 2013 mayoral campaign. No charges have been filed.
Before becoming the U.S. attorney, Bharara served as an assistant U.S. Attorney in New York, where he prosecuted a wide range of cases involving organized crime, racketeering, securities fraud, money laundering, and narcotics trafficking, according to the Justice Department website.
Bharara had a high profile in New York, but also obtained an odd fame in Turkey last year after announcing that grand jury had indicted a controversial Turkish Iranian businessman on suspicion of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. Shortly after the announcement, Bharara gained almost 250,000 followers on Twitter, most of them Turkish.
