90-year-old Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau is retiring Thursday after a 35 year reign, and he's not pulling any punches in his exit interviews with the media. Morgenthau's still lashing out at federal bureaucracy—"they ought to burn it down and start all over again"—for, most recently, interfering in his case against Credit Suisse. After copping to aiding Iran and other rogue nations in violation of economic sanctions, the bank coughed up $536 million. (The feds wanted only civil penalties.) But Morgenthau, naturally, saved his nastiest criticism for his "chickenshit" nemesis Mayor Bloomberg.
In a candid Wall Street Journal profile, which described Morgenthau as "the world's district attorney" for his success in prosecuting international business cases, Morgenthau reignited a long-running feud between himself and Bloomberg. It all started in 2007 after Morgenthau's office began looking into city's negligence in the 2007 Deutsche Bank fire that killed two firefighters, he received a call from a Bloomberg "minion" who said, "The mayor wanted me to tell you that he's surprised that you're looking at the Deutsche Bank case." Morgenthau replied, "You tell the mayor that I'm surprised that he's surprised." Speaking with the Journal, Morgenthau explained that Bloomberg "thinks all lawyers work for him" and "doesn't want anybody around who doesn't kiss his ring, or other parts of his body."
Morgenthau, the longest-serving district attorney in Manhattan, says he doesn't plan to disappear after Thursday, and may even start working for a law firm. "It may be crazy,” he tells the Times. "I wouldn’t deny that." And there's still time for more justice this week; after the Credit Suisse settlement was confirmed, he was overheard asking his Assistant DA, "Can we get anything else out in December?" Asked about any other investigations that might bear fruit before his era ends, Morgenthau told reporters, "We’ll think of something."
