Preet Bharara said he discussed secretly taping President Trump with his deputy when Bharara was still a U.S. attorney in the early days of Trump’s presidency.
Bharara, who said he never went through with taping the president, said Trump fired him as the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan just two days after that conversation took place, Yahoo News reported.
“It was a wacko time in the United States,” Bharara said, describing the weeks following the firing of FBI Director James Comey in May 2017. “Maybe some people weren’t thinking fully rationally, but people were really worried. And, people really thought that you had an unhinged president.”
Bharara was appointed by former President Barack Obama, but Trump initially asked him to stay on.
The former top prosecutor said he discussed taping Trump with his deputy Joon Kim when the president requested to speak with Bharara, who had jurisdiction over the Trump Organization and other parts of the president’s business affairs.
“We thought about and then rejected the possibility of recording the president, because we thought that’s a bridge too far,” Bharara said. “But, we did think about it.”
There were no open cases against Trump at the time, but Bharara said he feared the president would ask him about other ongoing cases that he would ultimately have to report to the Justice Department.
Last month, Bharara admitted to MSNBC that he thought about secretly recording a phone call with Trump around the time he was fired.
