AWKWARD

Preet Bharara Recalls ‘Unusual’ Trump Interactions

The former U.S. attorney says Trump's phone calls made him uncomfortable.

Former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara said Sunday that he got several “unusual” phone calls from President Trump prior to his firing. In comments on ABC News’ This Week, Bharara said he became increasingly uncomfortable as Trump appeared to try and form a friendship with him, breaking with Justice Department rules that prohibit such communications with the White House. “When I’ve been reading the stories of how the president has been contacting Jim Comey over time, felt a little bit like déjà vu,” Bharara said. Calling the phone calls “a very weird and peculiar thing,” Bharara said it was even more unusual since he was “in a position hypothetically to investigate business interests and associates of the president,” he said. New York’s attorney general has been investigating the Donald J. Trump Foundation for alleged self-dealing business agreements for several months, and a probe into the Eric Trump Foundation has also recently been announced. Bharara’s account of his conversations with Trump mirror that of ousted FBI director James Comey, who said Trump appeared to be trying to build “some sort of patronage relationship” with him. After Trump called him a few times to “check in and shoot the breeze,” Bharara said, the final call occurred on March 9—a day before he was asked to resign. “The call came in. I got a message. We deliberated over it, thought it was inappropriate to return the call. And 22 hours later I was asked to resign along with 45 other people,” he said.