In 2014, then-U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was considered among the leading candidates to become the next U.S. attorney general. 

But Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose office had been investigated by Bharara over the disbanding of an anti-corruption commission, lobbied the Obama White House against picking Bharara. 

That's according to a letter released on Friday by the governor's office and compiled by the outside attorneys Cuomo has hired to represent him and staff in the investigation by state Attorney General Letitia James' office into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct. 

Bharara looms large in the letter, in part, because of his ties to Joon Kim, one of the investigators James's office retained to lead the sexual harassment investigation.

Kim is now in private practice, but had previously served as a deputy to Bharara in the federal prosecutor's office and later became acting U.S. attorney after Bharara left office. 

The letter, which serves as another rebuttal against the bombshell harassment report released Tuesday by James' office, suggests Cuomo has thwarted Bharara's ambitions several times. 

In 2014, Cuomo told the White House Bharara and his colleagues are “unethical, press hungry, political operatives.” In 2017, the letter notes Cuomo reportedly told President Donald Trump Bharara "is not your friend" and "a bad guy." Cuomo at the time denied this, but the letter released Friday does not.

Trump later fired Bharara in a high-profile move. 

Cuomo instructed his attorneys to highlight his history with Bharara. 

"Put simply, this history has given our client severe misgivings about Mr. Kim’s independence," the letter states. "His multi-year record of investigating the governor and those around him; his exposure to information from two grand jury investigations about the chamber and its operations; and whatever conclusions and credibility determinations he had made regarding witnesses and others from those matters all suggest to our client that Mr. Kim may have come to this task with too much baggage to give the public — or those being investigated — the requisite confidence in his impartiality."

The attorney general's office has blasted questions of Kim's independence raised by Cuomo's legal team and his office in recent weeks. 

"The independent investigators selected are widely respected professionals, recognized for their legal and investigatory ability," said James spokesman Fabien Levy. "To attack this investigation and attempt to undermine and politicize this process takes away from the bravery displayed by these women."

Bharara was a major figure for New York politics. His office prosecuted corruption cases that led to the ejection of the powerful Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, and Senate majority leader, Dean Skelos. Bharara's office would eventually secure a conviction of a close former aide to Cuomo, Joe Percoco.

By the time of the guilty verdict in the Percoco case, however, Bharara was no longer in office.