Noah Feldman, Columnist

Bharara Should Have Resigned -- Or Explained Why He Didn't

Refusing Trump's request to quit could only be justified by ethical principle. So what was it?

March 13, 2017 at 11:30 AM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Better explanation needed.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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When the boss asks you to resign, should you say yes or make him fire you? In the executive branch of the federal government, there’s a strong tradition of stepping down, especially if you’re a political appointee of the other party. Yet Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, made President Donald Trump fire him, as did Sally Yates, the acting attorney general who refused to defend Trump’s original executive order on immigration back in January.

Were they justified? And are liberals right to instinctively support officials who refuse to follow the tradition in the Trump administration?