Preet Bharara: Are there still public servants who will say no to the president?
By Preet Bharara May 14 at 7:38 PM
Preet Bharara, a scholar in residence at New York University Law School, was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 until this March.
The most dramatic hearing I helped to arrange as chief counsel to a Senate subcommittee took place 10 years ago Monday, when James B. Comey, then deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, described how he and FBI Director Robert Mueller intervened at the hospital bedside of Attorney General John Ashcroft.
The encounter occurred in 2004, after White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales tried to overrule Comeys and Muellers legal objection to a secret terrorist surveillance program. When the White House nonetheless sought the ailing Ashcrofts blessing to proceed, Comey prepared to resign. Ultimately, Comey and Mueller prevailed.
Jim Comey was once my boss and remains my friend. I know that many people are mad at him. He has at different times become a cause for peoples frustration and anger on both sides of the aisle. Some of those people may have a point. But on this unsettling anniversary of that testimony, I am proud to know a man who had the courage to say no to a president.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/preet-bharara-are-there-still-public-servants-who-will-say-no-to-the-president/2017/05/14/8df915de-38d6-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html
El Mimbreno
(777 posts)I've been in a couple of government offices over the last month; BLM and Forest Service. Something was conspicuously absent in both; the customary presidential portrait.
furtheradu
(1,865 posts)This makes me happy.
elleng
(130,895 posts)We're not the only ones who can't stand looking at him!
elleng
(130,895 posts)You beat me to it. (I'm slow today!)