Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara — a leading contender to replace departing Attorney General Eric Holder — said Tuesday that he’s pretty much doing the AG’s job already.
“My sense is the priorities [of Holder’s office] are pretty well set: the focus on national security, which is a focus of our office, the focus on cybercrime, which is also the focus of our office, the focus on civil rights, which is also the focus of our office, emphasized most recently in the Rikers Island case,” Bharara said at a Crain’s New York business breakfast in Midtown.
Still, Bharara insisted, “I am very happy with my job” — and quipped that he knows why he’s on the short list to replace Holder.
“Here’s the problem: I have a very proud Indian mother, and when a vacancy seems to be coming open, she will call the newspapers and say please put me on the list,” said Bharara, drawing laughs from the crowd of several hundred at the New York Athletic Club.
“I told my mom to stop calling them.”
Democrats and even some Republicans think Bharara could be the only candidate with a chance at squeaking through the Congressional vetting process should he snare a lame-suck nomination from President Obama.
“He has qualities that Republicans would find nice,” a GOP insider told The Post. “He’s pretty independent, judging from his willingness to take on [Gov.] Cuomo.”
The veteran federal prosecutor had been investigating why Cuomo abruptly shut down a state ethics commission probing corruption in Albany last March.
The shutdown has become a major topic in the gubernatorial campaign, with Republican Rob Astorino running attack ads charging that Cuomo is “under federal investigation for corruption, witness tampering, obstruction of justice.”
Bharara on Tuesday refused to be drawn into the back-and-forth between the campaigns.
“I am not going to get into the business of talking about people’s ads,” Bharara said. “I do find it interesting that a lot of people try to use the work done by my office or the work they presume my office is doing for their [own gain]. The bottom line is we are prosecutors, not politicians.”
Bharara also said he wasn’t bothered by heat from his fellow Indians over his office’s prosecution of Devyani Khobragade, an Indian diplomat who was charged with lying on a visa application for a housekeeper.
He noted that he had been given the cold shoulder by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his current visit to the States but said, “I am not offended.”
He admitted that he has been called both a “coconut” and an “Uncle Tom” by some of his Indian critics.
”I think a lot of countries have a fraught relationship with ex-patriots who have reached the upper echelon,” he said.
He cited the sometimes-strained relationship that ex-US Ambassador to China Gary Locke – a Chinese-American – had with his host country and how Locke reacted.
“He said ‘I am extremely proud of being of Chinese decent … But I am an American, and I do my job for the United States, and I am proud of both those things.’ And that is exactly how I feel,” Bharara said.
Regarding his Rikers Island investigation, the lawman said the de Blasio administration needs to do more but “It’s encouraging to see the city has done a couple of things in recent days, including abandoning the plan for punitive segregation of [inmates awaiting trial] who are 16 or 17.”
Bharara last week threatened to take legal action against the city for not taking steps to institute his recommendations for cleaning up the lockup by a Sept. 22 deadline.