The White House has defended the firing of high-profile India-born prosecutor Preet Bharara and seeking of resignation of 45 other attorneys who were appointed by the previous administration, saying this was "standard operating procedure".
"This is a standard operating procedure for a new administration around this time to ask for the resignation of all the US attorneys," White House Press Secretary Sea Spicer told reporters at his daily news conference.
He made the remarks while responding to questions on firing of Bharara after he refused to resign following the Department of Justice's order asking him and 45 other attorneys, who were appointed by former President Barack Obama, to quit.
"We had most of them -- or a good chunk of them had already submitted their resignation letters. This is just the final swath of individuals who had not at this time. But this is common practice of most administrations," Spicer argued.
He said President Trump had wanted to call Bharara to thank him for his service.
"The President was calling to thank him for his service. This is, a standard action that takes place in most administrations," he said.
"Then-Attorney General Reno sent out an almost identical letter in 1993. The Bush administration sent out a similar one, as well. So this is a very common practice for all political appointees – not just in the Department of Justice – but throughout government when there's a turnover administration to ask for all individuals to do that," he said.
Bharara, 48, who was the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, left his office yesterday. He got an emotional farewell from his colleagues.
"I love New York. This is the best prosecutor's office you've ever seen," he said.
Meanwhile, a media report said that Bharara was fired because he was conducting a probe of Fox News channel and whether the Rupert Murdoch-owned company hid from its investors payments it made to employees who alleged sexual assault. The allegation was denied by the White House.
"The commonality and the uniformity of the resignations is the key here," White House Counselor Kellylanne Conway said.
"This is just not a news story, it's a lot of noise, not much news because it's very uniform and it's very common for presidents to ask for the resignations of political appointees like ambassadors and like US attorneys, the past few presidents have done this," she told Fox News.
"We made it uniform, the President made it uniform, so that there were no carve-outs, there was no special treatment. The only two people who are kind of exempted, if you will, are people who are having a different role in the administration, Mr Rosenstein and Dana, who's the acting deputy attorney general. But other than that, it's uniform across the board," Conway argued.
(With PTI inputs)
