An outspoken Manhattan federal prosecutor known for crusading against public corruption announced he was fired on Saturday after he refused a request a day earlier to resign. Preet Bharara, 48, made the announcement on his personal Twitter account after it became widely known hours earlier that he did not intend to step down in response to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ request that leftover appointees of former president, Barack Obama, quit, AP reported. “I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired,” Bharara said in the tweet. “Being the US attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life.” Bharara was appointed by Obama in 2009. Sessions’ decision to include Bharara’s name on the list of 46 resignations of holdovers from the Obama administration surprised Manhattan prosecutors. While it is customary for a new president to replace virtually all of the 93 US attorneys, it often occurs at a slower pace. Sessions lost his position as US attorney for the Southern District of Alabama in a similar sweep by then-attorney general, Janet Reno, in 1993.
