US : Former President Donald Trump pressured acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to declare that the election was corrupt in an attempt to help Republican members of Congress try to overturn the election result, according to notes of a December 2020 call Trump held with Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue.
During the December 27, 2020, call, Trump pressured Rosen and Donoghue to falsely declare the election “illegal” and “corrupt” even after the Justice Department had not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud. “Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,” Trump said on the call, according to Donoghue’s notes.
Donoghue’s contemporaneous notes were provided to the House Oversight Committee from call the Trump held with Rosen and Donoghue, who took over the top spots at DOJ in the final weeks of Trump’s presidency following the resignation of Attorney General William Barr.
The notes are the latest evidence of Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department to support his false claims of election fraud as he tried to overturn his November loss to Joe Biden. Those efforts are now the subject of a new House select committee that’s investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol carried out by pro-Trump supporters to try to stop the certification of Biden’s election win, in addition to the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Trump’s baseless election fraud claims.
“These handwritten notes show that President Trump directly instructed our nation’s top law enforcement agency to take steps to overturn a free and fair election in the final days of his presidency,” House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said in a statement
