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Home , Jeffrey Toobin, Preet Bharara

For Immediate Release: May 2, 2016 Press Contacts: Natalie Raabe, (212) 286-6591 Erica Hinsley, (212) 286-7936 Adrea Piazza, (212) 286-4255

How U.S. Attorney Struck Fear into and Albany

In the May 9, 2016, issue of , in “The Showman” (p. 38), profiles Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the South- ern District of , and examines the Democrat’s prosecutorial track record—and political ambitions beyond the state of New York. Bhar- ara runs one of the largest and most respected offices of federal prosecutors in the country; under his leadership, the office has charged dozens of Wall Street figures with and upended New York State politics by convicting the leaders of both houses of the state legislature of . Last week, he announced a major takedown of a hundred and twenty gang members in the Bronx. He’s even said to be the inspira- tion for the aggressive U.S. Attorney, played by , on the Showtime series “Billions.” After taking ofce in 2009 at the height of the mortgage crisis, Bharara conducted investigations of the major firms and individuals involved in the financial collapse. Despite his hard- charging ways, his ofce didn’t charge any top executives, for which Bharara has been criticized. “There’s a natural frustration, given how bad the consequences were for the country, that more people didn’t go to prison for it,” he tells Toobin, noting that sometimes you can’t prove when bad things happen. Former U.S. Attorney General adds, “Do you honestly think that Preet Bharara and all those hotshots in the U.S. Attorney’s office would not have made those cases if they could? Those are career-making cases. We just didn’t have the evidence.”

As Toobin reports, Bharara does little to hide his dislike for Governor , who, in 2013, created the Moreland Commission in response to New York’s long history of corruption—only to shut it down the following year. Bharara immediately dispatched a van to Albany to seize the commission’s files, and launched an investigation that ultimately led to the arrest of Speaker of the Assembly , for re- ceiving illegal kickbacks in return for services in the legislature, and the indictment of Majority Leader , who used his power in the state to pressure government contractors to hire his son. In both the Silver and Skelos trials, the juries deliberated for a short time before find- ing the defendants guilty on all counts. Although Bharara did not indict anyone in connection with the closing of the Moreland Commission, he tells Toobin, “A non-indictment is not an endorsement of anyone’s conduct.”

Recently, Bharara’s office launched an investigation into possible unlawful campaign contributions to Mayor and to state senate candidates. Bharara tells Toobin, “What has been going on in New York State government is heartbreaking, infuriating, and almost comic.” Amid rising speculation that Bharara will seek office in 2018—perhaps against Cuomo—he said, “I was not born to run.” According to Toobin, however, “It seems likely that he would welcome an offer to be the U.S. Attorney General in a Democratic Administration.”

Searching for Nazi Gold in Poland

In “Nazi Gold” (p. 46), Jake Halpern explores a land of treasure hunters: Lower Silesia, in south- western Poland, a region that was part of Germany until the end of the Second World War, and, according to legend, is home to gold, jewels, art, and weapons buried by German troops before they withdrew. In 1943, the Nazis began building a series of underground bunkers beneath the Owl Mountains in Lower Silesia. In total, there were seven separate facilities, known collectively as Riese, whose floor space may have exceeded a hundred and ninety thousand square meters—al- most forty times as large as the White House. One facility lies below Książ Castle, which was com- mandeered by the Nazis, who began renovating it as a residence for Adolf Hitler. “When the war ended, hardly anyone seemed to know about Riese, but clues were everywhere—collapsed cave en- trances, railroad tracks leading to abandoned worksites in the mountains, and ventilation shafts built into the forest floor,” Halpern writes. Most of the records of the projects have been destroyed, but some believe Riese was intended to be a bombproof refuge for Nazi élites or a place to manu- facture and store aircraft. With no master plan to consult, no one knew where all the tunnels began and ended or how far and deep they went.

More than seventy years later, the search for buried treasure—and the excavation of the tunnels— continues. Halpern visits Książ Castle and explores Lower Silesia at first hand, meeting Tomasz Jurek, president of the Lower Silesian Research Group, whose members are searching for a gold- BRUCE MCCALL laden Nazi train allegedly hidden in a secret tunnel. Halpern writes, “The treasure hunters I met didn’t seem to trust anyone, even one another.” They worried they were being watched by a gang of shadowy operators known as “the guards.” Andrzej Boczek, one of the treasure hunters, con- cedes that most of the original guards were likely dead, but suspects their secrets have been passed along to subsequent generations, whose mem- bers have been charged with watching over the homeland and keeping tabs on various buried treasures.

In Lower Silesia, people have been mining the earth for centuries. “There is a very good chance that the tunnels contain no treasures at all,” Halp- ern writes. When the Germans fled the region, in the early months of 1945, they may have taken anything of value with them. But as Halpern and a local miner, Janek, walk together through the woods in Lower Silesia, Janek notes, “There are still many holes here waiting to be dug.”

The Writer Mohammed Hanif Probes for Truth in Pakistan

In “Dangerous Fictions” (p. 28), Dexter Filkins profiles the writer Mohammed Hanif, a Pakistani journalist and novelist who has become per- haps the foremost observer of Pakistan’s contradictions and absurdities—pushing political and cultural boundaries with his satirical prose. Filkins travels to Karachi, which Hanif has called home since returning from London in 2008, and speaks extensively with Hanif, as well as his wife, colleagues, and publisher. Hanif tells Filkins, “Some writers become foreigners, even when they are living here. I don’t think I am a foreigner. Even the people who don’t like me, I’m one of them. I speak their language.” Hanif is the author of two novels set in Pakistan—“A Case of Ex- ploding Mangoes” and “Our Lady of Alice Bhatti”—which portray a country run almost entirely by backstabbing mediocrities and where women who show any gumption usually end up dead or disfigured. Filkins writes, “This kind of critique can be dangerous in Pakistan. While the con- stitution allows for a broad measure of free expression, people know better than to speak or write publicly about the powerful intelligence ser- vices or about crimes committed in the name of Islam.” Since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, thirty-one Pakistani jour- nalists have been murdered.

In his latest project, Hanif and the composer Mohammed Fairouz are collaborating on an opera called “Bhutto,” to be staged at the Pittsburgh Opera in 2018, about the polarizing Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto. In 2007, she returned to Pakistan from exile to run for a third term; less than an hour after her arrival, a suicide bomber attacked her motorcade, killing at least a hundred and forty people. Two months later, she was attacked again and killed. But Hanif’s wife tells Filkins, “In Pakistan, you don’t have to be outspoken to be killed. The people we might be afraid of are people we don’t even know.” She and Hanif talk about whether the family should leave Pakistan again. Filkins writes, “Pakistan, reliably chaotic since 1947, has served Hanif as a wellspring of characters and ideas.” Hanif insists that he would be happier if the country somehow be- came calm, telling Filkins, “I never want to leave. If Pakistan were normal and boring, I would love that. I’d shut my mouth for a while, if that was the price.”

Plus: In Comment, Amy Davidson looks ahead to the Republican National Convention, in July, where will likely accept the G.O.P. nomination, and considers how ignoring Trump’s Presidential candidacy, rather than truly confronting it, is exactly how the other can- didates ended up losing in the primaries (p. 17); in Shouts & Murmurs, Simon Rich recounts the 1991 Foosball Championship of the Whole Entire Universe (p. 26); Lauren Collins ofers an in-depth look at the life of Melania Trump, Donald Trump’s Slovenian wife, who, if her hus- band is elected President, would be the first foreign-born First Lady since Louisa Adams (p. 22); Kelefa Sanneh listens to Paul Simon’s forth- coming album, “Stranger to Stranger” (p. 62); Kathryn Schulz reads C. E. Morgan’s new novel, “The Sport of Kings” (p. 66); Emily Nuss- baum watches “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee,” a new late-night show on TBS (p. 72); Hilton Als attends a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s play “Long Day’s Journey into Night” (p. 74); Anthony Lane watches Luca Guadagnino’s “A Bigger Splash,” starring Tilda Swinton and Dakota Johnson, and Matthew Brown’s “The Man Who Knew Infinity,” starring Dev Patel (p. 76); and new fiction by John L’Heureux (p. 56).

Podcasts: Dorothy Wickenden and Evan Osnos discuss the G.O.P.’s problems with women; David Remnick speaks with Eyal Press and Harriet Krzykowski, a former mental-health counsellor at the Dade Correctional Facility, in Florida, about the threats prison workers can face from both inmates and guards; John L’Heureux reads his story “Three Short Moments in a Long Life”; Dana Spiotta reads Joy Williams’s “Chicken Hill” and discusses the story with Deborah Treisman.

Digital Extras: Rita Dove and Peter Gizzi read their poems; additional images of treasure hunters and Nazi tunnels in Lower Silesia, Poland; and an excerpt from C. E. Morgan’s “The Sport of Kings.”

The May 9, 2016, issue of The New Yorker goes on sale at newsstands beginning Monday, May 2.