BOOK REVIEW: ‘Doing Justice’ by Preet Bharara

OPINION:

DOING JUSTICE: A PROSECUTOR’S THOUGHTS ON CRIME, PUNISHMENT, AND THE RULE OF LAW

By Preet Bharara

Knopf, $26.95, 345 pages

Want food for thought? Here’s a banquet.

This book makes you think about subjects eminently worth thinking about, like truth, justice and the rule of law.

In the preface, the author writes, “Much of what passes for argument in the public square these days would be laughed out of court. Politicians and television talking heads would be disbarred for perversion of truth and outright lies. As someone recently put it, federal court is not Twitter.”

If that last sentence sounds pointed, that’s probably because it is; two years ago Mr. Bharara, then the U.S. attorney for the justly famous Southern District of New York, was fired by President Trump.

As this paper reported on Sept. 21, 2117, “Mr. Bharara was appointed in 2009 Prior to being fired by the president earlier this year, Mr. Trump told Mr. Bharara he could keep his job as U.S. attorney but changed course after taking office and ultimately requested the resignations of all 46 federal prosecutors appointed by his predecessor, former President Barack Obama. Mr. Bharara refused to resign and was subsequently fired March 11.”

The firing forced Mr. Bharara out of what he says had been his dream legal job. Early on, he writes that when he was a young law firm associate in Manhattan and his parents would visit him, “I would take them for dim sum in Chinatown [and] as we walked to lunch I would point to [the SDNY office] and say, ’That’s where I want to work some day.’”

Given that firing, it would have surprised no one had this book been a vengeful volume, but it is anything but. Instead, it’s a thoughtful, fast-moving, easy-to-read reminder of some basic truths that we sometimes forget even though they’re supposed to be self-evident.

During his tenure at the Southern District of New York (SDNY), first as an assistant United States attorney and then as SDNY’s top law enforcement officer, Mr. Bharara earned a reputation as a very aggressive prosecutor. In addition to putting several mob bosses in jail while still an assistant U.S. attorney, many of his investigations in that role centered on financial fraud (It was his office that exposed and convicted Bernie Madoff) and insider trading.

Next he went after dishonest politicos, including 11-term Speaker of the New York State Assembly Sheldon Silver for taking millions of dollars in payoffs, and New York State Majority Leader Dean Skelos for several violations of federal law. Time magazine’s cover story on Mr. Bharara was captioned “This Man is Busting up Wall Street.”

It’s been written that if the Democrats had won the 2016 election, Mr. Bharara would probably have been named U.S. attorney general.

Organizationally, the book has four parts, all related to the prosecutorial function — inquiry, accusation, judgment and punishment. But instead of a dry legalistic how-to, he presents his general principles in clear, clean jargon-less prose, and then supports them with examples of how he and his staff put those principles into practice, making it read like anything but a “law book.”

“Doing Justice” contains many quotable passages: “Justice is a broad and hazy subject I do not advance here some grand and novel theory of justice. But what I do suggest is that people will regard a result as just if they regard the people responsible for it as fair-minded. It is often said that justice not only must be done, but also must be seen to be done There is a crisis of confidence in modern America, but it is not always in the failure of the law or the breakdown of the constitutional process.”

Or, “The approach I lay out applies not only to how federal laws are interpreted and enforced around the country; it also informs how mature, thinking people make decisions in their communities, in their workplaces, and in their homes. This is not a book about the law. It is a book about integrity, leadership, decision-making, and moral reasoning. These are all crucial to the meaning and nature of justice.”

Or, finally, “Certain norms do matter. Our adversaries are not our enemies; the law is not a political weapon; objective truths do exist; fair process is essential in a civilized society.”

Happily, on the rare occasions when the narrative threatens to get bogged down in legal terms or prosecutorial minutiae, the author introduces a well-chosen story about one or more of the many bad guys he and his team “put away,” from thugs in the streets to cons in the suites. In those moments, “Doing Justice” reads more like a crime novel.

To be fair, I’m not sure if defense attorneys — especially those who have gone up against Mr. Bharara or his team — would share my strong enthusiasm for this book and its author. But until they check in, I’m going to stay out on a limb and call “Doing Justice” one of the best books about the law I’ve ever read.

• John Greenya, a Washington writer and critic, is the author of “Gorsuch: The Judge Who Speaks For Himself” (Simon and Schuster, 2018).