Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said Sunday he doesn’t know anything about an eyebrow-raising report that Preet Bharara, a federal prosecutor fired by President Trump, had been looking into controversial stock trades he made while serving in Congress.
Mr. Price, a Georgia Republican who served in the House for about a dozen years before joining the administration, said his lawyers hadn’t received any indication that he’d been targeted by investigators.
“No, I have — know nothing about that whatsoever,” Mr. Price told ABC’s “This Week.”
Democrats blasted Mr. Price during his confirmation process for trading hundreds of thousands of dollars in health-related stocks, even as he oversaw legislation that could affect those companies.
Senior Republicans rallied to his defense, saying Mr. Price had disclosed his trades and was being smeared for political purposes.
On Friday, a ProPublica report said Mr. Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Office for the Southern District of New York, had been overseeing a probe into the trades before his removal this month.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked dozens of U.S. attorneys to submit resignation letters in order to make way for the appointment of prosecutors nominated by Mr. Trump.
Such turnover is typical at the start of a new presidential administration, with prosecutors who head the 94 U.S. Attorney’s Offices across the country often leaving at the outset of a new administration.
Yet Mr. Bharara had met with Mr. Trump following the November presidential election and said he’d been asked by the president to stay on in his position.
The prosecutor had to be fired after he refused to submit his resignation.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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