When Department of Justice prosecutor Preet Bharara was fired by the Trump administration, it was seen as what it likely was; a purge of President Trump's opposition from within the government. The firing itself was a symbol of defiance for both sides but mostly for Bharara as he had rejected calls to resign and was fired for doing for it because it was clear to the prosecutor that he did not want to leave.

Blasting News reported on this effort to "purge" the opposition, which resulted in the firing of 46 prosecutors that were left over by the former Obama administration.

It mentioned the possibility that the administration fired them in order to stall pending investigations against Trump or his cabinet picks. Soon after Preet was fired, ProPublica revealed that the attorney was investigating Trump's head of the Department of Health and Human Services, tom price for insider trading which Preet specializes in.

Investigating Tom Price

The article by ProPublica was updated on March 19 with Tom Price's response to whether his staff had been contacted about the DOJ investigation in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on This Week, to which he claimed he was not aware. Even before his hearing during the first week of Donald Trump's inauguration, his shady trading history was already reported as a potential conflict of interest.

The issue was also brought up at the hearing. Tom Price was reportedly involved with legislating laws that would impact companies in the health industry, while he traded stocks for companies those laws would impact.

For instance, the article refers to a yet another article by Time magazine which reported that Tom Price had invested $90,000 into six drug companies that he would later co-sponsor legislation for to stop regulation that would kill their bottom line.

Those companies are Eli Lilly, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Amgen, McKesson, Biogen and Pfizer which were publicly lobbying to stop those regulations. The Time article also points out that neither Tom Price nor the Trump administration made any effort to cover up or diminish even the appearance of Conflicts Of Interest.

Other blatantly questionable conduct

It should be pointed out that many organizations are targeting the Trump administration for their conflicts of interest which includes cabinet members and that some of those organizations were trying to get Preet Bharara to go after Trump for violating the Emoluments Clause. President Trump has reportedly not divested from his company and instead, handed it off to his children who still have positions in the White House. His other cabinet picks also have questionable backgrounds who the Office of Government Ethics put enough pressure on to force some of them to withdraw their nomination.

Trump himself reportedly called Preet the day before he would receive his notice to resign, thanking him for his work. Time made the effort to obtain a review of Congressional financial disclosures showing that Price held between $60,000 to $250,000 dollars worth of stocks for those health care companies.

Both Time and ProPublica also refer to a report by CNN showing that Senator Price introduced the HIP Act last year which was designed to delay regulation that would hurt Zimmer Biomet, a company that manufactures knee and hip implants. The regulation he would kill would impact the company's cost of payments for the implant procedures. The controversy is that a week before he introduced the bill, he bought $1,000 to $15,000 dollars worth of shares from Zimmer Biomet.

Even more revealing is that after the regulation was killed, Biomet and other companies donated money to his reelection campaign. Joon Kim is currently the in charge of the office Preet Bharara left until Trump fills it and there is currently no information on the status of these investigations, leaving many to wonder if they will continue. Since his firing, Bharara has joined the NYC School of Law starting April 1 as a distinguished scholar in residence.
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