Preet Bharara to Stay on as Manhattan U.S Attorney After Trump Tower Meeting

NEW YORK CITY, NY — The U.S. Attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, will keep his current job when Donald Trump assumes the presidency on Jan. 20, a spokeswoman from Bharara's office told Patch.

One of Trump's main campaign promises was to "drain the swamp," aka the government, of corruption — and now he'll have a U.S. attorney who knows how to do it.

During Bharara's eight-year tenure as U.S. attorney, he has focused on fighting corruption in New York state, winning convictions against former Democratic Speaker of the New York State Assembly Sheldon Silver and former Republican State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

In addition to fighting corruption Bharara has taken down arms trafficker Viktor Bout, sent the Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad away for life and has secured convictions against white-collar criminals such as former hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam.

Bharara announced he will stay on as U.S. attorney after a Wednesday afternoon meeting at Trump Tower.

“The president-elect asked, presumably because he's a New Yorker and is aware of the great work that our office has done over the past seven years, asked to meet with me to discuss whether or not I'd be prepared to stay on as the United States attorney to do the work as we have done it, independently, without fear or favor for the last seven years,” Bharara told reporters at the Trump Tower press pool, Politico reported. "We had a good meeting. I said I would absolutely consider staying on. I agreed to stay on. I have already spoken to Senator Sessions, who is as you know is the nominee to be the attorney general. He also asked that I stay on, and so I expect that I will be continuing to work at the southern district.”

Bharara was unanimously approved to his post in 2009 after being nominated by President Barack Obama. He had previously served in the office for five years as an assistant U.S. attorney and has also worked as a lawyer in the private sector. Bharara was born in India and earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and law degree from Columbia Law School.

Photo via U.S. Attorney's Office Southern District of New York