House Committee Releases Docs Claiming Trump Pressed Justice Dept. to Overturn 2020 Election Results
WASHINGTON - The House Oversight Committee on Friday released documents that it claims show that former President Donald Trump pressured the Justice Department to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
"Today, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, the Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, released handwritten notes taken by then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard P. Donoghue of a December 27, 2020, phone call with former President Donald J. Trump and former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. These notes reveal attempts by former President Trump to directly pressure the two most senior officials at the Department of Justice (DOJ) to overturn the certified results of the 2020 election or risk losing their jobs," the committee said in a press release.
The documents show that Trump pressured Rosen to have the Justice Department say the 2020 election was corrupt.
Trump told Rosen that the Justice Department was failing to respond to legitimate complaints of voter and election fraud, but Rosen said those allegations were not supported by evidence and informed the former US president that much of the information he was citing is false, the documents show.
Rosen told Trump the Justice Department could not and would not try to change the outcome of the presidential election, the documents show.
Trump continued to claim the results of the 2020 election were illegal and corrupt, at one point mentioning that he could replace Rosen with then-Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, according to the documents.
Due to these findings, the Oversight Committee requested that Clark, former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Patrick Hovakimian, former US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Byung Jin Pak and former Acting US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Bobby Christine appear for transcribed interviews.
Several US election security agencies and the Justice Department disputed Trump's allegations of election and voter fraud. The Trump campaign lost more than 60 lawsuits alleging voter fraud in a failed bid to reverse the 2020 election results.