Bharara was fired by the President in March
Former US Attorney Preet Bharara on Sunday lashed out at Trump and said that there is evidence to begin a case for obstruction of justice.
In his first television interview after being fired by the President in March, Bharara told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that “no one knows right now whether there is a provable case of obstruction.”
“I think there’s absolutely evidence to begin a case,” Bharara said.
“It’s also true, I think, from based on what I see as a third-party and out of government that there’s no basis to say there’s no obstruction,” he said on ‘This Week’.
When asked about Alan Dershowitz comments arguing it’s in Trump’s authority to direct the FBI to stop investigating any individual, Bharara said “it’s a little silly” to him and he don’t really get it.
“The fact that you have authority to remove someone from office doesn’t automatically immunize that act from criminal responsibility,” the former US attorney for the Southern District of New York said.
Bharara also attended Thursday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing where fired FBI Director James Comey testified about conversations he had with Trump about the agencies probe into Flynn and overall Russia investigation.
He told Stephanopoulous that it was like ‘a little bit like déjà vu’ to listen about Comey’s interactions with Trump and how his firing played out.
“In reporting the phone call to the chief of staff to the attorney general I said, it appeared to be that he was trying to cultivate some kind of relationship,” Bharara told ABC mentioning about a series of “unusual phone calls” Trump made to him.
“It’s a very weird and peculiar thing for a one-on-one conversation without the attorney general, without warning between the president and me or any United States attorney who has been asked to investigate various things and is in a position hypothetically to investigate business interests and associates of the president,” he said.
Last month, in an Op-ed in The Washington post, Bharara expressed his pride to know a man – Jim Comey – who had the courage to say no to president adding that history will judge this moment.