NEW YORK (TIP): Indian American Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney in Manhattan who was fired by the Trump administration in March, has been hired by CNN as a senior legal analyst, according to Politico. Bharara has made guest appearances on a number of TV shows.

He also recently launched a podcast, “Stay Tuned with Preet.” “Had I not been fired, and had Donald Trump continued to cultivate a direct personal relationship with me, it’s my strong belief at some point, given the history, the president of the United States would’ve asked me to do something inappropriate,” Bharara said on the podcast. “And I would’ve resigned then. I don’t know for a fact, but that’s my strong belief.”

Bharara was nominated to become U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York by President Barack Obama on May 15, 2009. As U.S. Attorney, Bharara earned a reputation of a “crusader” prosecutor. According to the New York Times, during his tenure he was one of “the nation’s most aggressive and outspoken prosecutors of public corruption and Wall Street crime.”^[Under Bharara, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York prosecuted nearly 100 Wall Street executives for insider trading and other offenses. He reached historic settlements and fines with the four largest banks in the United States, and closed multibillion-dollar hedge funds for activities including insider trading.

During Bharara’s tenure, federal prosecutors also conducted public corruption investigations against Democratic and Republican officials, most notably securing convictions against the Speaker of the New York State Assembly, Sheldon Silver, and the Majority Leader of the State Senate, Dean Skelos.One of Bharara’s chief adversaries was Governor Andrew Cuomo, whom Bharara’s office investigated. Under Bharara, the U.S. Attorney’s office was also known for its terrorism prosecutions and civil rights cases. Bharara’s office had international reach, pursuing defendants located in many countries outside the United States.

On March 11, 2017, during increased national debate about the appointment of a special prosecutor to manage an investigation of links between the Trump 2016 campaign and Russia, Bharara was fired after he refused to follow Attorney General Jeff Sessions‘ request for all remaining 46 US Attorneys appointed during President Obama’s administration to resign. On April 1, 2017, Bharara joined the NYU School of Law faculty as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence.