Donald Trump lobbied Justice Department officials to declare the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden, “rigged,” according to handwritten notes from a participant in a phone conversation.
27 call notes, released Friday by the House Oversight Committee, underscore how far Trump has gone in seeking to alter the election results and garner support from law enforcement officials.
Emails released in June show that Trump and his allies, in their final weeks in the White House, pressured the Justice Department to investigate unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud.
“Just say the election was rigged and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”Addressing then-Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Trump said at one point, according to notes recorded by Richard Donoghue, who was Rosen’s second-in-command who was also participating in the conversation.
Trump’s pressure was all the more compelling because a few weeks ago, Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, revealed that the Department of Justice had found no evidence of fraud that could have changed the bottom line.
The December 27 phone call came days after Barr resigned, leaving Rosen to run the administration during the Trump administration’s turbulent final weeks, which also included the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill, in which Trump supporters stormed the building as members of Congress were in. Certification of election results.
“These handwritten notes show that President Trump has directly instructed our leading law enforcement agency to move forward with transformative free and fair elections in the final days of his presidency,” Democratic President Caroline said in a statement. New York.
During the call, according to the notes, Trump said people were “outraged” and accused the Department of Justice of their “inaction,” adding: “We have an obligation to tell people that this is an illegal and rigged election.”
He also accused the Justice Department of failing to respond to criminal complaints, even though judges have sequentially dismissed charges without evidence of fraud, including those appointed by Trump, and by those responsible for the electoral process across the country.
Justice Department officials told Trump they were investigating, but there is no evidence to support the allegations and that much of the information he (Trump) was receiving was “false,” according to Donoghue’s notes.
At one point in the conversation, as always notes, Rosen told Trump that the Department of Justice cannot “move its fingers” and “change the outcome of an election.” During the phone call, Trump also acknowledged replacing Rosen.
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