US Justice Officials Describe Trump's 'brazen' Manipulation

Washington, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 24th Jun, 2022 ) :Lawmakers investigating last year's attack on the US Capitol on Thursday laid out Donald Trump's "brazen" efforts to recruit the Justice Department into his scheme to overturn his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.

At the fifth hearing in its year-long probe of the insurrection, the House of Representatives panel detailed Trump's pressure on officials as part of his campaign to assert falsely that his presidency had been stolen from him by widespread voter fraud.

"Donald Trump didn't just want the Justice Department to investigate. He wanted the Justice Department to help legitimize his lies, to baselessly call the election corrupt," committee chairman Bennie Thompson said.

Lawmakers revisited tensions among government attorneys the weekend before the January 6, 2021 insurrection, when Trump tried to install his own man at the top of the department.

"It was a brazen attempt to use the Justice Department to advance the President's personal political agenda," Thompson said.

The committee heard from Jeffrey Rosen, who became acting attorney general after Bill Barr resigned, and soon found himself at the center of Trump's efforts to undermine confidence in the election.

Underscoring the intensity of Trump's pressure on the department, Rosen said that in late December 2020 and early January 2021, the president contacted him almost daily.

"At one point, he had raised the question of having a special counsel for election fraud. At a number of points, he raised requests that I meet with his campaign counsel, Mr. (Rudy) Giuliani," Rosen said.

"At one point, he raised whether the Justice Department would file a lawsuit in the Supreme Court. At a couple of junctures, there were questions about making public statements or about holding a press conference."The DOJ pursued a deluge of Trump's election fraud claims, but Rosen said officials were presented with no evidence.

At that point Trump began elevating a little-known mid-level department official named Jeffrey Clark, who embraced the outgoing president's debunked theories.