A former U.S. attorney said he was concerned after receiving a phone message from the White House in March, one day before he was asked to step down from his position.
BuzzFeed News reported President Donald Trump's secretary Madeline Westerhout asked Preet Bharara to call her back March 9, which gave him pause.
He wrote a letter to the Department of Justice a few hours later to document the phone message and a subsequent call he had with a DOJ official regarding the matter.
"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 that would be great. Thanks,'" Bharara wrote.
Bharara served as a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York starting in 2009. The day after he received the White House phone message, he was asked to step down. After refusing that order, he was fired the following day.
"After receiving that message, I immediately consulted with the Deputy U.S. Attorney, Joon Kim, about the propriety of returning the call," Bharara wrote in his DOJ memo. "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."
Bharara said he called the White House roughly two hours after receiving the voicemail and informed Westerhout he would not speak with Trump.
Bharara told CNN earlier this month Trump reached out to him multiple times after he won last November's election.
"It was a little bit uncomfortable," Bharara told CNN. "But he was not the president. He was only the president-elect."