“There is a swamp, a lot of the system is rigged and lots of your fellow Americans have been forgotten and have been left behind. Those are not alternative facts. That is not fake news,” Bharara said during an hour-long speech at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

“But I would respectfully submit you don’t drain a swamp with a slogan. You don’t drain it by replacing one set of partisans with another. You don’t replace muck with muck. To drain a swamp you need an Army Corps of Engineers, experts schooled in service and serious purpose, not do-nothing, say-anything neophyte opportunists who know a lot about how to bully and bluster but not so much about truth, justice and fairness.”

Bharara, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, was one of 46 U.S. attorneys asked to resign by the Trump administration last month. The order is not unusual at the beginning of a new administration. But in Bharara’s case the move came as a surprise. Trump had asked him to stay after a meeting at Trump Tower in November and Bharara initially was unclear about whether the order to resign applied to him.