Trump Fires US Attorney Preet Bharara After He Refuses To Quit

The speculation over whether Trump would or would not fire the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, who earlier reportedly said he would not resign on his own, came to a close a 2:29pm ET when Preet Bharara, tweeting from his private Twitter account, announced he had been fired.

"I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life."

I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life.

— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) March 11, 2017

Bharara’s dismissal ended an "extraordinary" showdown in which a political appointee who was named by Mr. Trump’s predecessor, President Barack Obama, declined an order to submit a resignation.

“I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life,” Mr. Bharara wrote on his personal Twitter feed, which he set up in the last two weeks. Bharara was among 46 holdover Obama appointees who were called by the acting deputy attorney general on Friday and told to immediately submit resignations and plan to clear out of their offices. But Bharara, who was called to Trump Tower for a meeting with the incoming president in late November 2016, declined to do so.

As reported previously, Bharara said he was asked by Trump to remain in his current post at the meeting. Bharara met with Trump at Trump Tower, and then addressed reporters afterward. Before the firing, one of New York’s top elected Republicans voiced support for Bharara on Saturday.

The Southern District of New York, which Bharara has overseen since 2009, encompasses Manhattan, Trump’s home before he was elected president, as well as the Bronx, Westchester, and other counties north of New York City. Last weekend, Trump accused Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in Manhattan, an allegation which various Congressmen have said they will launch a probe into.

And now the speculation will begin in earnest why just three months after Bharara, who at the time was conducting a corruption investigation into NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio as well as into aides of NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, told the press that Trump had asked him to "stay on" he is being fired and whether this may indicate that the NYSD has perhaps opened a probe into Trump himself as some have speculated. For more on the unexpected break between the two, read here.

Earlier on Saturday, ProPublica"s Jesse Eisinger proposed some good ideas in tweet format over the tension between Trump and Bharara, as follows:

1. The Preet Bharara drama began with a mystery: Why did Trump ask him to stay on in November, after their meeting in Trump Tower?


2. Why would Trump ask @USAttyBharara, an ostensibly tough US attorney and--more importantly here-- former Schumer aide, to stay on?


3. Was Schumer making a deal? Trump & Schumer go way back in NY politics. What was @PreetBharara going to do in return?


4. Maybe Trump liked that @PreetBharara going after high-profile NY Dems. Maybe he thought it would look worse for his appointee to do so.


5. Or maybe Trump just liked the cut of @PreetBharara"s jib and made the decision in a split-second, on instinct.


6. So what"s changed? Did SDNY start some kind of investigation of Trump? Is Preet collateral damage in Trump"s war vs the bureaucracy?


7. & what does this mean for ongoing Cuomo & DeBlasio investigations? Would indictments from, say, USAtty Marc Mukasey be viewed the same?


8. That is, if Trump actually fires @USAttyBharara, who then becomes just @PreetBharara.


9. And is Trump launching the political career of @PreetBharara by martyring him?


10. Irrespective, it"s great for @USAttyBharara, who didn"t prosecute Wall St banks after the finl crisis & suffered no reputational damage.

To be sure, moments after the resignation, some of Trump"s most vocal opponents promptly took the president to task over the decision:

Might be very convenient to Donald Trump to leave the US Attorneyship for SDNY vacant for a long, long, long time.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) March 11, 2017

Finally, as a reminder, in 1993 Jeff Sessions was fired by Bill Clinton"s Attorney General Janet Reno in exactly the same way.

Why are we pretending that Trump replacing US attorneys is something new? Jeff Sessions was canned by Bill Clinton in the same process. pic.twitter.com/hfDlfYfEfY

— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) March 11, 2017

Former UN Secretary-General's Brother/Nephew Indicted In U.S. On Bribery Charges

Less than two weeks after stepping down as U.N. Secretary-General, a move many interpreted as an indication of his intention to run for the Presidency of South Korea, two of Ban Ki-Moon"s relatives have been indicted in the U.S. on charges of bribery.  According to the Daily Mail, Ban Ki-Moon"s brother, Ban Ki-sang, and nephew, Joo Hyun "Dennis" Bahn who is a New York real estate broker, have been indicted for an alleged scheme to bribe a Middle Eastern official to use his country"s sovereign wealth fund to purchase a struggling $800 million real estate complex in Vietnam.  Joo Hyun Bahn has been arrested in New York City and is expected to appear in court later today according to the office of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.

Two relatives of former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon have been indicted on U.S. charges that they engaged in a scheme to bribe a Middle Eastern official in connection with the attempted $800 million sale of a building complex in Vietnam.

Joo Hyun "Dennis" Bahn, a New York real estate broker who is Ban Ki-Moon"s nephew, and his father Ban Ki-sang, Ban Ki-moon"s brother who was a senior executive at South Korean construction firm Keangnam Enterprises Co Ltd, were charged in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.

Bahn is in custody and expected to appear in court later on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said. Defense lawyers could not immediately be identified.

Per the Daily Mail, Bahn and Ban Ki-sang agreed to pay an upfront $500,000 bribe to a gentleman named Malcom Harris, a self-described arts and fashion consultant and blogger, who claimed to have a direct connection to a Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund that would be willing to purchase their failed Vietnamese real estate project.  Unfortunately, proving that you can pretty much never trust an "arts and fashion consultant and blogger," the whole thing turned out to be a complete scam and Harris spent the entire upfront payment on lavish gifts for himself.

According to the indictment, in 2013, Keangnam was facing a liquidity crisis and turned to Bahn to secure an investor for a Vietnamese building complex called Landmark 72 in exchange for a potential $5 million commission.

Rather than obtain financing legitimately, Bahn and Ban Ki-sang engaged in a scheme to pay bribes to an unnamed Middle Eastern official to convince his country"s sovereign wealth fund to acquire Landmark 72, the indictment said.

The bribes were paid through Malcolm Harris, a self-described arts and fashion consultant and blogger who was also charged and who the indictment said claimed to be an agent of the official.

Based on communications with Harris, in April 2014, Bahn and Ban Ki-sang agreed to pay an upfront $500,000 bribe and another $2 million upon the sale"s closing, the indictment said.

But Harris did not have the relationship he claimed with the official, the indictment said, and stole the $500,000, which he spent lavishly.

Of course, this news couldn"t come at a worst time for Ban Ki-Moon who was considered to be the front-runner for the Presidency of South Korea after lawmakers there just voted 234-56 to impeach current President Park Geun-hye over accusations of bribery, abuse of power and violating her constitutional duties (see "South Korea President Park Impeached In Corruption Scandal").  Somehow we suspect South Korean voters will not respond favorably to this news just weeks after impeaching their current president for similar allegations.