3, the president either called me or met with me virtually every day,” Rosen said. He wanted the Justice Department to help legitimize his lies, to baselessly call the election corrupt, to appoint a special counsel to investigate alleged election fraud,” Thompson said. “Donald Trump didn’t just want the Justice Department to investigate. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).Ī declaration from Justice Department officials that fraud had taken place in the election would have cast serious doubt on the results and given Republican-controlled state legislatures a pretense for appointing alternate presidential electors to reverse Joe Biden’s victory, he said. “He hoped that law enforcement officials would give the appearance of legitimacy to his lies so he and his allies had some veneer of credibility when they told the country that the election was stolen,” said the panel’s chair, Rep.
Using testimony from three former top Justice Department officials, the committee laid out Trump’s unremitting pressure on department leaders as he demanded they lend credence to his unsubstantiated claims of fraud in order to subvert the will of voters and keep him in office. Congressmen.Then-President Trump nearly replaced the head of the Department of Justice with a supporter of his fraud theories after the acting attorney general refused to comply with his persistent demands to falsely claim there was evidence of malfeasance in the 2020 election, the House panel investigating the Capitol insurrection detailed in its hearing Thursday. The committee displayed an image of Donoghue's handwritten note on the former president's instructions to DOJ that read, "Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R.
Rosen told the committee that between the dates of December 23, 2020, and January 3, 2021, Trump would call him or meet with him almost every day.ĭuring these meetings, Trump would express how the Justice Department needed to do more to investigate election fraud during the 2020 presidential election, Rosen said.Īlso at Thursday's hearing, former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue recalled how Trump tried to pressure the Justice Department to do more to support his claims of voter fraud. The requests from Trump and his campaign came after William Barr resigned as attorney general and Rosen stepped into that role in an acting capacity. "The Justice Department declined all of those requests that I was just referencing because we did not think they were appropriate based on the facts and the law, as we understood," Rosen said. These tactics included filing a lawsuit with the Supreme Court, making public statements, and holding a press conference. Rosen told lawmakers on the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection that during Trump's final days in office, the former president and his campaign suggested several strategies for the Justice Department to overturn the presidential election results.
The House committee said they show how Trump tried to pressure DOJ officials.įormer acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen said on Thursday that then-President Donald Trump suggested that the Justice Department send letters to state legislatures in Georgia and other states alleging that there was voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election despite knowing there was no such evidence. Rosen refused to send the letters, stating there was no evidence of fraud during 2020 elections. Then-President Donald Trump suggested DOJ send letters to states suggesting election fraud. Capitol in the Cannon House Office Building on June 23, 2022. Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Attorney General, testifies before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S.
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