Free Republic

Preet Bharara, one of the most high-profile federal prosecutors in the country, said he was fired Saturday after refusing to submit a letter of resignation as part of an ouster of the remaining U.S. attorneys who were holdovers from the Obama administration, according to people familiar with the matter.Bharara’s dismissal was an about-face from President Trump’s assurances to the Manhattan-based prosecutor in November, weeks after the election, that he wanted him to stay on the job following a meeting at Trump Tower, according to Bharara.

A man of his word, Preet Bharara ran afoul of a President who is a shameless, inveterate fabulist. In November, shortly after the election, Bharara met with then President-elect Donald Trump and his senior adviser, Jeff Sessions, who is now Attorney General. After the sitdown, Bharara told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower that Trump and Sessions had given assurances he could remain U.S. attorney of the Southern District. Weeks later, to the surprise of absolutely no one, it turns out Trump's word, like the signage on his buildings, was made of cheap, bendable brass rather than valuable gold....

Preet Bharara says he was fired "moments ago." He reiterated that he did not resign his post as Manhattan's federal prosecutor. "I did not resign," Bharara said in a tweet. "Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life."

The U.S. attorney for Manhattan has declined to resign despite a demand from the Justice Department. Preet Bharara declined to tender his resignation on Friday part of a demand from the Justice Department for 46 U.S. attorneys to resign, according to multiple reports. Bharara previously met with President Trump at Trump Tower before the inauguration and had told reporters Trump asked him to stay on.

Shortly after Mayor Bill de Blasio met with the U.S. Attorney's office Friday morning, City Hall released a trove of documents concerning communications between the de Blasio administration and outside advisors, known as the "Agents of the City." NY1's Bobby Cuza dug through the documents and filed the following report on what he found. On what turned out to be a bad news day for the mayor, one where reporters were busy reporting on his meeting with federal investigators, City Hall decided it was a good time to dump some documents — about 1,600 pages in all, including correspondence between...

Soon: Mayor's Long-Anticipated Meeting with U.S. Attorney's Office By NY1 News Friday, February 24, 2017 at 06:29 AM EST NEW YORK - Mayor Bill de Blasio's long anticipated meeting with the U.S. Attorney's Office will take place later this morning in Midtown. For the past two days, the mayor has been inside in his attorney’s office for hours at a time, presumably preparing for this interview. Today's meeting comes as the U.S. Attorney’s office potentially wraps up a lengthy investigation into the mayor’s fundraising and campaign activities. De Blasio voluntarily agreed to sit down with federal investigators and he has...

Hello? Just as Mayor Bill de Blasio is to meet with federal prosecutors to talk possible pay-to-play with the city’s teachers union, that same union fulsomely endorses the mayor for a second term. Awkward? You might say. Really. Why not take a bright red Sharpie and draw a fat circle around that $350,000 American Federation of Teachers “donation” to de Blasio’s now-defunct-but-certainly-not-forgotten Campaign for One New York slush fund — followed days later by the $9 billion contract the mayor laid on the union’s local affiliate, the United Federation of Teachers.

Jeff Sessions advanced in the Senate today to becoming our new Attorney General. All that is left between Sessions and being Attorney General is the final vote in the Senate for final confirmation. Once Sessions gets in, the fur is going to fly! The democrats know this, and they have done everything possible to bar Sessions from confirmation. They used an obscure rule to delay Sessions’ vote, which was supposed to happen Tuesday. Democrats on the committee gave lengthy speeches opposing him, triggering a rule that doesn’t allow the panel to be in session for two hours past the state...

ALBANY — State Controller Thomas DiNapoli announced Thursday he signed off on a $643,000 payment to a law firm representing Gov. Cuomo’s office in a federal corruption probe.... The law firm has been representing the executive chamber during U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s investigation.... Overall legal costs attached to the probe by all state agencies involved is rapidly approaching $5 million, Politico NY reported Thursday.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Gov. Andrew Cuomo's campaign collected $25,000 in donations from Cor Development Co. executives at a December 2015 fundraiser. Two days later, Cuomo's staff did something nice for Cor. Administration officials finally dislodged a contract to sell the company 3.6 acres of state land that Cor wanted in Syracuse's Inner Harbor. The deal had been approved five months earlier, but was stuck in governmental purgatory.... The December 2015 fund-raising event was hosted by lobbyist Todd Howe, who represented Cor at the time, according to a report of the event by Politico. Howe recently pleaded guilty to corruption charges...

An ongoing investigation by the highly respected U.S. attorney for Southern New York, Preet Bharara, apparently is targeting the top levels at City Hall, and there are reasons to expect that if a case is brought, it will be under the leadership Jeff Sessions, President-Elect Trump’s designee for attorney general. Michael Goodman of the New York Post reports on some serious clouds on the leftist mayor’s horizon, as the mayor desperately tries to hide emails that have been subpoenaed: Mayor de Blasio, calling questions about his shady dealings with political consultants and lobbyists a “distraction,” says from now on. he will release...

Although Donald Trump has signaled that he doesn't intend to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, knowledgeable sources tell me that Hillary is far from out of the legal woods.And, these sources add, it’s Hillary’s own fault that she’s still in trouble.Trump tried to be magnanimous toward his vanquished adversary. “I don’t want to hurt [the Clintons],” he said in an interview with Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes. “They’re good people. I don’t want to hurt them.”But Trump was irate when sore-loser Hillary joined forces with Green Party candidate Jill Stein and asked for a recount in Wisconsin,...

There’s going to be the same old “sheriff” in this town. Preet Bharara, The gungho federal prosecutor has agreed to “stay on” as Manhattan U.S. Attorney after President-elect Donald Trump offered him the gig during a meeting Wednesday afternoon at Trump Tower in Midtown. “We had a good meeting. I agreed to stay on. I have already spoken to Senator Sessions, who is as you know is the nominee to be the attorney general. He also asked that I stay on, and so I expect that I will be continuing to work at the southern district,” Bharara confirmed to a...

An array of figures from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s inner circle—including a confidante so close the governor called him “my father’s third son”—got slapped with a sweeping 14-count federal indictment today, which alleges they colluded in a pair of schemes to solicit bribes for state assistance and to rig economic development contracts for companies that gave to Cuomo’s campaigns.

Interesting turn of events. It appears, folks, that the "Band-Of-Brothers Blood" of law enforcement officers (LEOs) has moved to support and defend it own kind. The New York Police Department, conducting it's own investigation of the Anthony Weiner sex escapade with a fifteen year old minor female, has, in this process, discovered a "Treasure Trove" of infomation, that could possibly destroy the POTUS ambitions of both Hillary Clinton and the entire Democrat Party. The NYPD, IMHO, immediately transferred this gem information to their brothers in the FBI, who, then confronted FBI Director, James Comey with these supposed criminal, damning findings....

She appears to have used her official powers to do favors for major Clinton Foundation donors. Felony mishandling of classified information, including our nation’s most closely guarded intelligence secrets; the misappropriation and destruction of tens of thousands of government records — these are serious criminal offenses. To this point, the Justice Department and FBI have found creative ways not to charge Hillary Clinton for them. Whether this will remain the case has yet to be seen. As we go to press, the stunning news has broken that the FBI’s investigation is being reopened. It appears, based on early reports, that...

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine said Friday that he is troubled by the way the FBI has handled the discovery of new emails related to Hillary Clinton's private server investigation and called for more information to be released. "When you do this 11 days before a presidential election and you don’t provide many details, but details are apparently being given by the FBI to the press, this is very, very troubling, and we hope that the director— and we really think that he should give a clearer accounting of exactly whats going on right now," Kaine said in an...

Multiple FBI investigations are underway involving potential corruption charges against the Clinton Foundation, according to a former senior law enforcement official. The investigation centers on New York City, where the Clinton Foundation has its main offices, according to the former official who has direct knowledge of the activities. Prosecutorial support will come from various U.S. Attorneys Offices — a major departure from other centralized FBI investigations.

Multiple FBI investigations are underway involving potential corruption charges against the Clinton Foundation, according to a former senior law enforcement official. The investigation centers on New York City, where the Clinton Foundation has its main offices, according to the former official who has direct knowledge of the activities. Prosecutorial support will come from various U.S. Attorneys Offices — a major departure from other centralized FBI investigations.

Preet Bharara has prosecuted mobsters from the Gambino family, Islamic terrorists, Wall Street insiders and top New York lawmakers. But it was a money-laundering case announced this week that has made the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York a bona fide celebrity on social media, and elevated him into a national obsession — in Turkey.Bharara gained almost 250,000 new followers on Twitter, many of them Turkish, after he announced Monday that a grand jury had indicted a controversial Turkish Iranian businessman on suspicion of violating U.S. sanctions on Iran.