Man Against the Mighty: U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on What Ails Albany
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara at New York Law School, where he spoke the day after the arrest of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib
U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara manages the investigations and litigations of all federal criminal and civil cases filed in the Southern District of New York, including the five-count indictment that led to the arrest last month of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. The day after Silver’s arrest, Bharara spoke about political corruption in Albany to an overflow crowd at a City Law Breakfast at New York Law School in Tribeca. Following are excerpts from his remarks.
“We are prosecutors, not morality cops”
Let me start by talking a little about our overall approach to [public] corruption.... We are not trying to criminalize ordinary politics. We are not trying to wag our finger or thump our chests nor, quite frankly, are we even demanding that our government officials be virtuous or vice-free. We are prosecutors, not morality cops.... We simply want people in high office to stop violating the law. It seems like a simple and modest request. People who are elected to make laws should not be breaking them.
“What ails Albany”
In the series of cases that we have brought including the one we brought yesterday, they go to the very core of what ails Albany.... It’s a lack of transparency, a lack of accountability and a lack of principle, joined with an overabundance of greed, cronyism and self-dealing. It seems sometimes that Albany really is a cauldron of corruption. Politicians are supposed to be on the people’s payroll, not on secret retainer to wealthy special interests they do favors for.
“People of New York should be angry”
Often corruption is about greed. It’s as simple as that. Greed on the part of elected or appointed officials—whose responsibility is to the public and whose salaries are paid by the taxpayers—whether it is by selling votes for cash or embezzling funds in their trust or otherwise. There are a spate of instances where elected officials have sought to monetize their public positions. Money often seems to be the core of the problem. How should all of this make us feel as citizens and taxpayers? The people of New York should be disappointed, but they should be more than disappointed. They should maybe be angry when so many of their leaders can be bought for a few thousand dollars. When it is more likely for a New York state senator to be arrested by the authorities than to be defeated at the polls.... Whenever corruption is on the rise, that means that democracy is on the decline.
“Three men in a room”
It is common knowledge that [in New York State] only three men essentially wield all the power...the governor, the assembly speaker and the senate president...why has everyone just come to accept this? The concept of three men in a room seems to have disappointedly taken root instead of being questioned.... It’s weird to me that officials and writers joke about it good-naturedly, as if they are talking nostalgically about an old sitcom coming up after “Happy Days.”... Is that really the way government should be run? When did 20 million New Yorkers agree to be run by a triumvirate like in Roman times?
“Getting swept up in the power”
If you are one of the three men in a room and you have all the power and you always have and everyone knows it, you don’t tolerate dissent because you don’t have to. You don’t allow debate because you don’t have to. You don’t favor change or foster reform because you don’t have to and because the status quo always benefits you.... On the other side of the coin, ...if you are one of three men in the room, you keep people in the dark, because you can, you punish independent thinking, because you can, you demand lockstep loyalty because you can. You get swept up in the power and the trappings because you were never challenged and you easily forget who put you there in the first place.
“A culture of corruption”
It seems that a culture of corruption has developed and grown just like barnacles on a boat bottom. It seems that such a culture has become so embedded that even a series of tough and successful prosecutions that have separated so many lawmakers from their liberty has not been enough to thwart others from following in their felonious footsteps. And just as with barnacles on a boat bottom, when a growth is permitted to spread and grow unchecked it unsurprising takes unrelenting collective effort to clean it up.
“When good people sit on the sidelines”
I think most people are actually good and want to do the right thing. The problem…in any culture, society, institution is figuring out a way to make sure that good people...don’t just sit on the sidelines. To give courage to the people who know better.