Bharara

Poor, poor Preet Bharara, the U.S Attorney for the Southern District of NY. If you listen to the preponderance of media reports (fake news), you'd think that Bharara was batman, single-handedly conducting important investigations—that he's interviewing every witness, pounding the streets looking for wrong-doing, running off to meetings with junior FBI agents who are doggedly collecting evidence.

In fact, Bharara is a political appointee with a large staff of lawyers, investigators, and law enforcement people who do almost all the work associated with the investigations. The staff are civil servants and they will remain in place. Yes, Bharara is the point man, but that doesn't mean that everything stops when he's on vacation or ... when he's fired because (as part of a blatant political stunt) he refused to follow long-standing precedent and resign. Every president replaces the political appointees of his predecessor and Donald Trump is no different.

The faux outrage over Bharara's firing manufactured by the Democrats' trained hamsters in the media is as laughable as it was predictable. In fact, if you believed the reports coming from the hamsters, Bharara's departure will lead to lawlessness and chaos on Wall Street. Besides, they whine, Trump said he'd allow Bharara to remain in his position. He. Changed. His. Mind.

Glen Reynolds comments:

There’s been a lot of faux outrage about this decision of Trump’s, but it’s all bogus. And Bharara’s refusal to resign was childish, an effort to score anti-Trump points with Democrats that, all by itself, demonstrated why Bharara was unfit for office and why Trump was right to let him go.

Here’s the thing to understand: United States attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. The prosecution of crimes, including the decision of which crimes to prosecute and which crimes not to prosecute, is at the discretion of the executive branch, which ultimately means the discretion of the president. U.S. attorneys work for the president in that capacity. And if the president thinks someone else would be better, he’s free to fire them and replace them.

And there’s nothing whatsoever unusual or improper about doing so, something the press has no trouble remembering when the incoming administration is run by Democrats. When Barack Obama took office, he dismissed a bunch of U.S. attorneys. Attorney General Eric Holder explained that “Elections matter — it is our intention to have the U.S. attorneys that are selected by President Obama in place as quickly as they can.”

Ahhh ... the ubiquitous double standard at work. A Democrat president "replaces" political appointees—not a peep from the hamsters in the media. A new GOP president "ousts" or "fires" or "axes" appointees in the exact same position, and the hamsters get the vapors, whine about the cruelty of the action, and suggest that it's just another example of an uncaring, lawless, clueless administration. Fake news.