The Justice Department ordered White House personnel and other Trump administration officials to preserve all records related to any of President Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders.

The DOJ directive, revealed in a court filing Wednesday, comes amid heightened scrutiny of how President Trump’s communications with foreign leaders are handled after a controversial discussion Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky became the focus of a whistleblower complaint, spurring impeachment efforts by Democrats on Capitol Hill. The filing in D.C. district court is part of a federal lawsuit launched by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning government watchdog group, earlier this year.

The watchdog group had filed a motion for an emergency restraining order Tuesday, requesting that the court order the Trump administration to preserve all records — including any notes or transcripts — related to any meetings or communications with foreign leaders, all documents related to record keeping practices, any information related to investigations of these record keeping practices, and any documentation of efforts by any Trump administration members to “return, claw back, ‘lock down,’ or recall” records related to communications with foreign leaders that may have been disseminated throughout the executive branch.

DOJ attorneys responded Wednesday they had “instructed relevant personnel” to preserve all of the information requested by the watchdog group. DOJ said that its preservation instruction was consistent with rules already in place, specifically pointing to a February 2017 memo from then-White House counsel Don McGahn which “remind[ed] all personnel of their obligation to preserve and maintain presidential records, as required by the Presidential Records Act.” Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled the emergency restraining order wasn't necessary.

The transcript of the July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelensky, released last week, showed that Trump asked for a "favor" from Ukraine in investigating a conspiracy theory related to the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which determined the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee’s email systems, an assessment agreed to by special counsel Robert Mueller and the U.S. intelligence community. Trump also urged the Ukrainian leader to look into whether there was any Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election. Trump brought up his request related to CrowdStrike immediately after Zelensky asked about purchasing anti-tank weaponry, known as Javelins, from the United States.

Trump also talked about "the other thing," suggesting that the Ukrainians investigate allegations of corruption related to 2020 Democrat Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Trump urged Zelensky to speak with Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, and Attorney General Bill Barr. Giuliani has spent months urging Ukraine to investigate possible Ukrainian election interference and the Bidens, though DOJ says Barr has not been involved in Giuliani’s effort.

The whistleblower claimed some government officials told them that the White House’s handling of that phone call raised alarm.

“White House officials told me that they were ‘directed’ by White House lawyers to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored for coordination, finalization, and distribution to Cabinet-level officials. Instead, the transcript was loaded into a separate electronic system that is otherwise used to store and handle classified information of an especially sensitive nature,” the whistleblower wrote. “One White House official described this act as an abuse of this electronic system because the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.”

There have since been reports that call transcripts with other foreign leaders were handled in a similar way, with the Trump administration defending its actions and saying this was done to prevent leaks.