DOJ Fires US Attorney Preet Bharara After He Refuses to Resign in Mass Purge

On March 10, 2017, the Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked all 46 remaining Obama-appointed U.S. Attorneys to submit resignations effective immediately. Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, declined to resign and was fired the next day. Bharara had met with then-President-elect Trump at Trump Tower in November 2016, where Trump personally asked him to stay on and the two shook hands, and Trump's assistant placed calls to Bharara's office in the weeks before the firing that Bharara later said made him uncomfortable given rules against a sitting U.S. Attorney communicating directly with the President. Observers, including Rep. John Conyers, noted Bharara's office was positioned to review activity touching Trump Tower and the Trump campaign, and Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz later told associates he had pushed for the firing, reportedly having warned Trump that Bharara 'is going to get you.' The episode was widely read as removing an independent federal prosecutor with jurisdiction over Trump-linked matters under cover of a broader transition-era purge.