Preet Bharara asks: Will public servants say no to a president?

Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney who was fired by President Trump, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post Sunday evening that lays out three ways to “restore faith in the rule of law.”

“First, we need a truly bipartisan investigation in Congress,” he wrote. “That means no partisan nonsense — just a commitment to finding the facts, whatever they may be, proving (or disproving) Russian interference in our election and anything related.”

“Congress is a check and a balance, and never more important than when a bullying chief executive used to his own way seems not to remember the co-equal status of the other two branches,” he added.

“Second, the new FBI director must be apolitical and sensitive to the law-enforcement mission,” he continued.

{mosads}“Finally, I join in the common-sense call for an independent and uncompromised special counsel to oversee the Russia investigation,” he added.

Bharara was responding in part to Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey last week.

Trump fired Comey on Tuesday, saying in a letter that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended the action.

Although officials originally claimed Comey was fired for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, Trump has linked the decision to the bureau’s probe into Russian meddling in the election.  

“Jim Comey was once my boss and remains my friend,” Bharara wrote in the Post.

“I know that many people are mad at him. He has at different times become a cause for people’s frustration and anger on both sides of the aisle. Some of those people may have a point.”

But, he added, “I am proud to know a man who had the courage to say no to a president.”

“And in the tumult of this time,” he continued, many should be asking, “Are there still public servants who are prepared to say no to the president?”