Why Trump's Dismissal of Preet Bharara Matters
In late November 1968, less than a month after Richard Nixon won the presidency, U.S. Attorney Robert Morgenthau made a surprise announcement: He wasn’t leaving his post.
John F. Kennedy had chosen Morgenthau to be the chief federal prosecutor for the southern district of New York in 1961, and U.S. attorneys traditionally resigned when a new president was elected. But Morgenthau said he had no intention of leaving, telling reporters he still had “vendettas to settle” in his campaigns against political corruption and tax-evading Swiss banks.
One year later, Morgenthau resigned after Attorney General John Mitchell told him, on behalf of the Nixon administration, to leave or be the White House for abiding by the “customs and principles of the old politics,” and appealed to the principle that law enforcement should be above politics.
