India-born former top federal prosecutor Preet Bharara took swipes at President Donald Trump, saying "you don't drain a swamp with a slogan" and poked fun at his fixation on crowd sizes. During an hour-long speech at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art here, Bharara used wit as well as brutal criticism as he offered his thoughts about the Trump administration and reflected on his 7.5 year journey as the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Bharara, who was fired by the Trump administration last month, used the President's popular campaign slogan to "drain the swamp" to offer a brutal criticism of the new administration and its way of working. "There is a swamp, a lot of the system is rigged and lots of your fellow Americans have been forgotten and have been left behind. Those are not alternative facts. That is not fake news," the 48-year-old said to a packed hall.
"But I would respectfully submit you don't drain a swamp with a slogan. You don't drain it by replacing one set of partisans with another. You don't replace muck with muck. To drain a swamp you need an Army Corps of Engineers, experts schooled in service and serious purpose, not do-nothing, say-anything neophyte opportunists who know a lot about how to bully and bluster but not so much about truth, justice and fairness."
