Meet the man who is Rajat Gupta’s antithesis

When Rajat Gupta was convicted for insider trading, and his protégé Anil Kumar’s nasty little network of Indian informers was exposed, the buzz quietly went around in corporate America that Indians were inherently dishonest, untrustworthy and needed to be watched. But then, as someone pointed out, don’t forget that the guy who was behind their conviction was also Indian – Preet Bharara.

The last time we heard about Bharara in India was probably when, after putting away Rajat Gupta, he went after Devyani Khobragade. So where is he now, and what is he up to?

Good question.

Ever since he was appointed Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 2009, Bharara has been a kind of legal Batman, on a quest to clean up Gotham City. And he has spared nobody: not the Mafia, not Wall Street, not the corporations, not the politicians (whether Republican or Democratic), not a racket of supposed Holocaust victims trying to defraud the German government, not even the governor of New York. Whew!

Not above the law

One of the first wrong-doers Bharara went after was the major bank JP Morgan Chase for its role in the Bernie Madoff fraud. He got it to cough up $1.7 billion, the largest forfeiture from a bank in American history. He then went after Citibank for its involvement in risky loans (fine: $7 billion); Bank of America for a mortgage fraud (fine: $1 billion, the first such penalty on a major US bank for its role in the financial crisis); and Toyota for lying to consumers (fine: 1.2 billion, the largest criminal penalty ever on an automotive company). And then, of course, there was his high-profile Insider Trading campaign, which resulted in the prosecution of dozens of dirty Wall Street guys and the closing down of multi-billion dollar hedge funds.

Bharara has not been afraid of taking on the politicians, big or small – his stand on corruption being, essentially, that the blame lies not only with the bad guys, but equally on the good people who don’t do enough to stop it. As he aptly put it, “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”

He has been responsible for putting various politicians behind bars for corruption, going all the way up to the top – including New York Senator Carl Kruger (Democrat), Majority Leader of the State Senate Dean G Skelos (Republican), and the Speaker of the State Assembly, Sheldon Silver (Democrat). He even went aggressively after Governor Andrew Cuomo’s pet multi-million dollar plan for the economic revitalisation of western New York, over allegations of corruption – but finally dropped that for lack of sufficient evidence (although recent indicators are that Cuomo might not have heard the end of the matter).

Bharara has also been famously critical of the US Justice Department for not prosecuting the culprits of the 2008 financial crisis, saying that the means and resources were in place, but hinting, controversially, that the then attorney general – his ex-boss – didn’t have the courage to do it.

As he told a recent class passing out of Harvard Law School, “People spend their entire lives waiting for a chance to make a difference in the world. For too many people that moment never comes. But you, by virtue of your law degree, will have that opportunity every single day. The world needs you to seize it.”

Bharara, the TV serial

As a result of Bharara’s crusading exploits, he has inspired a hit TV serial, Billions, featuring a thinly disguised Attorney for the Southern District of New York (Bharara’s designation) who is going after a wily insider-trading hedge fund billionaire (supposedly Steven A. Cohen, the founder of SAC Capital, the company Bharara played a long cat-and-mouse game with, before he finally got it shut down after paying fines totaling $1.8 billion).

There have, however, been various criticisms of Bharara’s aggressive style, including the charge that he holds high-profile press conferences where he uses his brilliant communication skills to prejudice public opinion – and the jury – about the defendants’ guilt, before the trial even begins.

And then there was the criticism that he was deliberately targeting people of Indian origin (such as Rajat Gupta and gang, and Devyani Khobragade) to prove some kind of point. To which he responded by saying, “Indian critics were angry because although I hailed from India, I appeared to be going out of my way to act American and to serve the interests of America. Which is kind of odd, because I AM American, and the words ‘United States’ are actually in my job title.” Then, with characteristic wit, he dryly added, “I saw an attack in the press which said Bharara had ‘undertaken this case to serve his White Masters’ – presumably [Attorney General] Eric Holder and Barack Obama [both of whom happen to be black].”

Next Attorney General of the US?

To understand Bharara – and his mission in life – one needs to look at one line in the speech he made to the students of Harvard Law School, “I believe in the quaint and uncommon view that to be a lawyer is to join a noble profession. I believe, also, that there is no one better situated to prevent cruelty, promote equality and reserve liberty than the person who has genuinely dedicated himself or herself to being both a master and a servant of the law.“

Bharara has now been Attorney for the Southern District of New York for over six years. So where does he go from here?

There were rumours that he planned to stand for Governor of New York – which he denied. There was talk last year that he was going to join Obama’s cabinet as Attorney General – but, instead, another New York Attorney (Loretta Lynch, of the Eastern District) was appointed.

And now the buzz in the US, once again, is that Bharara will become Attorney General, if Hillary Clinton wins the presidential election.

When asked about this possibility, he diplomatically responded, “I’ll wait till that happens”. Which is perhaps telling.