Preet Bharara

Preetinder Singh Bharara (born October 13, 1968) is an Indian-born American lawyer and former federal prosecutor who served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017.

He is currently a partner at the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for five years prior to leading the Southern District of New York.

Bharara was born in 1968 in Firozpur, Punjab, India, to a Sikh father and Hindu mother.

His parents immigrated to the United States in 1970.

Bharara became a U.S. citizen at age 12.

He grew up in Eatontown in suburban Monmouth County, New Jersey and attended Ranney School in Tinton Falls, New Jersey, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1986.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1990.

He then received a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School in 1993, where he was a member of the Columbia Law Review.

In 1993, Bharara joined the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher as a litigation associate.

In 1996, Bharara joined the firm of Shereff, Friedman, Hoffman & Goodman, where he did white-collar defense work.

He was an assistant United States Attorney in Manhattan for five years, from 2000 to 2005, bringing criminal cases against the bosses of the Gambino crime family, Colombo crime family and Asian gangs in New York City.

Bharara served as the chief counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer and played a leading role in the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary investigation into the firings of United States attorneys.

He transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2004 as an assistant U.S. Attorney, beginning his career as a federal prosecutor.

His office heavily prosecuted the Italian mafia, convicting four out of the Five Families.

Bharara similarly headed various counter-terrorism probes and cases, particularly against Al-Qaeda.

His office used a variety of unconventional tactics to close cases like wiretapping and asset seizure.

He prosecuted nearly 100 Wall Street executives for insider trading and securities fraud using these legal methods.

Bharara closed settlements with the four largest banks in the country and shut down multiple hedge funds.

Known for his technocratic approach to prosecution, he routinely convicted both Democratic and Republican politicians on public corruption violations.

Bharara occasionally pursued criminals extraterritorially.

Bharara first entered the public sector as chief counsel to Senator Chuck Schumer when Schumer was charged with investigating the 2006 presidential dismissal of U.S. attorneys.

Bharara was nominated to become U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York by President Barack Obama on May 15, 2009, and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

He was sworn into the position on August 13, 2009.

From 2009 to 2012 (and ongoing), Bharara's office oversaw the Galleon Group insider trading investigation against Raj Rajaratnam, Rajat Gupta, Anil Kumar and more than 60 others.

In 2012, Bharara was featured on a cover of Time magazine entitled "This Man is Busting Wall Street" for his office's prosecutions of insider trading and other financial fraud on Wall Street.

Following a 2013 Russian money laundering investigation, Russian officials permanently banned him from entering Russia.

The prosecution of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade by his office in 2013 led to a strain in India–United States relations.

On April 13, 2013, Bharara was on a list released by the Russian Federation of Americans banned from entering the country over their alleged human rights violations.

The list was a direct response to the so-called Magnitsky list revealed by the United States the day before.

In September 2014, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intention to step down, Bharara was speculated as being a potential candidate as the next United States Attorney General, although Holder's ultimate named successor was Loretta Lynch.

Bharara's office sent out agents to more than 25 countries to investigate suspects of arms and narcotics trafficking and terrorists, and bring them to Manhattan to face charges.

One case involved Viktor Bout.

Bout was an arms trafficker, who lived in Moscow and had a deal involving selling arms to Colombian terrorists.

Bharara argued that this aggressive approach is necessary in post 9/11 era.

Defense lawyers criticized the stings, calling Bharara's office "the Southern District of the World."

They also argued that American citizens would not appreciate other countries' treating them in such ways.

Countries have not always rushed to cooperate.

This is according to a review of secret State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.

Upon the election of former U.S. President Donald Trump, Bharara was dismissed after refusing to submit his resignation as part of the 2017 dismissal of U.S. attorneys.