Report: Rupert Murdoch 'Benefits' From Firing of NYC U-S Attorney

Preet Bharara

(Reuters) -- Two days before U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was fired, President Donald Trump tried to call the high-profile New York prosecutor in what a White House official said was an effort to "thank him for his service and to wish him good luck."

But a U.S. law enforcement official said Bharara declined to take the call, placed on Thursday, saying he did not want to talk to the president without the approval of his superiors.

Bharara said on Saturday he had been fired after he defied a request to resign. The move was a surprise because Bharara had told reporters in November that Trump had asked him to remain in the job.

As the chief federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, which includes Manhattan, Bharara oversaw several notable corruption and white-collar criminal cases, as well as prosecutions of terrorism suspects.

He was one of 46 Obama administration holdovers who were asked to resign by the Justice Department on Friday.

Although U.S. attorneys are political appointees, and the request from Trump's Justice Department is part of a routine process, the move came as a surprise. Not every new administration replaces all U.S. attorneys at once.

The White House declined to comment further on the resignations.

The office in the southern district of New York handles some of the most critical business and criminal cases that pass through the federal judicial system. Bharara had been overseeing a probe into New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's fundraising and  a high-profile federal investigation of Fox News.

Democrat Elijah Cummings, ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said on Sunday it was the president's prerogative to fire U.S. attorneys. But he questioned why Trump had suddenly changed his mind on keeping Bharara.

"I'm just curious as to why that is," Cummings said on ABC's "This Week" program. "Certainly, there's a lot of questions coming up as to whether ... President Trump is concerned about the jurisdiction of this U.S. attorney and whether that might affect his future."

The probe, reports New York Magazine, is looking at whether Fox News executives broke laws by allegedly obtaining journalists’ phone records or committed mail and wire fraud by hiding financial settlements paid to women who accused Roger Ailes of sexual harassment.

Trump’s decision to fire Bharara ignited speculation that it was designed to blunt investigations like the Fox News probe.

CNN's Jeffery Toobin discusses what will happen to former US Attorney Preet Bharara's Fox News investigation now that he has been fired by the Trump administration.