Preet Bharara doesn’t need any pity.

Indeed, he needs a hand-clap or two for standing up to the president of the United States.

Here’s what he did.

Bharara served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, a post to which he was appointed by President Barack Obama. After the 2016 election, Donald J. Trump reportedly asked Bharara to stay on the job. The federal prosecutor agreed.

Trump took the oath of office, then in a stunning reversal, he sought the resignations of all Obama appointees who had stayed on after the former president had left office.

Bharara was one of them. He refused to quit. What did the president do? He fired him today.

This sequence speaks quite directly to the utter aimlessness of the new administration. The president says one thing, does another and then strikes out against those who try to hold him accountable for the statements he makes.

Bharara will land on his feet. He’s a first-rate lawyer. He’ll likely end up in private practice somewhere and will make a handsome living. Or, he might run for public office.

Or, he might go on a speaking tour, where he’ll also make a lot of money telling the nation about the caprice that the current president seems all too willing to demonstrate.

Oh, and it’s interesting too that the president hasn’t denied — via Twitter or any other medium — that he ever asked the prosecutor to stay on the job.