Preet Bharara emailed DOJ about phone call from Trump: report

Ousted U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara emailed officials from the Justice Department to notify them about a phone call he received from President Trump’s secretary one day before he was asked to resign in March, according to BuzzFeed.

“At approximately 4:41 pm, on 3/9/17, I received the following voicemail at work: ‘Hi, Mr. Bharara. This is Madeline Westerhout calling from President Donald Trump’s office. If you could please give me a call back at that would be great. Thanks,’ ” Bharara wrote on March 9.

{mosads}”After receiving that message, I immediately consulted with the Deputy U.S. Attorney, Joon Kim, about the propriety of returning the call. We printed out and reviewed a copy of the May 11, 2009 (as well as he December 19, 2007) Memos relating to Communications with the White House,” he continued.

Bharara, who was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, also reached out to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s chief of staff, Jody Hunt, that same day, according to the report.

“I advised him of the phone call from the President, and we discussed the propriety of speaking with the President in light of all the circumstances, including appearances issues,” he said, describing his conversation with Hunt, in an email to chief counsel Joan Loughnane and Deputy U.S. Attorney Joon Kim. 

Bharara recounted the president calling him three times before he was fired and said he recorded one of the calls to his chief of staff during an interview with ABC in June.

“I was in discussions with my own folks, and in reporting the phone call to the chief of staff to the attorney general I said, it appeared to be that he was trying to cultivate some kind of relationship,” he said.