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Donald Trump

WASHINGTON. – The Trump administration moved on Friday to sweep away most of the remaining vestiges of Obama administration prosecutors at the Justice Department, ordering 46 holdover United States attorneys to tender their resignations immediately – including Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan.

The firings were a surprise – especially for Bharara, who has a reputation for prosecuting public corruption cases and for investigating insider trading.

In November, Bharara met with then President-elect Donald J. Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan and told reporters afterwards that both Trump and Jeff Sessions, who is now the Attorney-General, had asked him about staying on, which the prosecutor said he expected to do.

But on Friday, Bharara was among federal prosecutors who received a call from Dana Boente, the acting deputy attorney-general, instructing him to resign, according to a person familiar with the matter. As of Friday evening, though some of the prosecutors had publicly announced their resignations, Bharara had not.

However, according to a CNN report yesterday, Bharara, who is the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, tweeted on Saturday that he was fired after refusing to resign as requested by the Trump administration.

“I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired,” Bharara wrote on his verified Twitter account on Saturday afternoon. “Being the US attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honour of my professional life.

“One hallmark of justice is absolute independence, and that was my touchstone every day that I served,” Bharara later said in a statement.

Bharara’s refusal to resign created a stunning public standoff on Saturday, as 46 US attorneys across the country were asked to tender their resignations Friday afternoon.

The abrupt order came after two weeks of increasing calls from Trump’s allies outside the government to oust appointees from the Obama administration. Trump has been angered by a series of reports based on leaked information from a sprawling bureaucracy, as well as from his own West Wing.

Several officials said the firings had been planned before Friday.

But the calls from the acting deputy attorney general arose a day after Sean Hannity, the Fox News commentator who is a strong supporter of Trump, said on his evening show that Trump needed to “purge” Obama holdovers from the federal government. – New York Times/CNN.

Sarah Isgur Flores, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an email that all remaining holdover United States attorneys had been asked to resign, leaving their deputy United States attorneys, who are career officials, in place in an acting capacity.

“As was the case in prior transitions, many of the United States Attorneys nominated by the previous administration already have left the Department of Justice,” she said in the email.

“The Attorney General has now asked the remaining 46 presidentially appointed U.S. Attorneys to tender their resignations in order to ensure a uniform transition.”

The abrupt order came after two weeks of increasing calls from Trump’s allies outside the government to oust appointees from the Obama administration. Trump has been angered by a series of reports based on leaked information from a sprawling bureaucracy, as well as from his own West Wing.

Several officials said the firings had been planned before Friday.

But the calls from the acting deputy attorney general arose a day after Sean Hannity, the Fox News commentator who is a strong supporter of Trump, said on his evening show that Trump needed to “purge” Obama holdovers from the federal government. – New York Times/CNN