At the end of last year, the former US President Donald Trump apparently urged senior Justice Department officials to declare the election "corrupt", even though they had shown no signs of fraud. Trump and his political allies wanted to use the forced assertion to overturn the election result in Congress in favor of his opponent Joe Biden. This is supposed to show a transcript from the Justice Department, which the New York Times has received and which was given to the MPs who investigate the behavior of Trump's team after the election.
Accordingly, Trump reported to the then Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen and his deputy Richard P. Donoghue on December 27, 2020. In doing so, he put pressure on the two of them to withdraw the allegations of electoral fraud that the Justice Department had refuted. Donoghue pointed out that the ministry did not have the power to change the election result. Trump, in turn, reportedly replied that he did not expect it: "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the allies in Congress."
Typically, the government does not provide Congress with notes on the President's discussions with Cabinet members. In this case, according to the New York Times, the Justice Department of the government of Democratic President Joe Biden waived secrecy because it was a possible offense by a former president as a person, not legitimate government acts. The ministry also allowed Rosen and Donoghue to answer questions from the House of Representatives' Control and Justice Committee without special restrictions. Carolyn Maloney, New York Democrat and chairwoman of the committee, said: "These handwritten notes show that President Trump has directed our country's chief law enforcement agency toto take steps in the last days of his presidency to prevent a free and fair election. "
The committees are investigating the alleged efforts of Republican Trump to discredit the election or even to overturn it through political machinations against the will of the voters. After the November 3rd election, Trump spoke of “massive electoral fraud” and also put pressure on local election officers, for example in the state of Georgia. However, dozens of courts dismissed claims against alleged fraud. The Justice Department also said there was no evidence of any major election fraud. Trump, in turn, goes on to claim that he won the election.
The content of the conversation could also damage the congressmen who sided with Trump. Although Trump did not name them as his "allies", he mentioned elsewhere Jim Jordan from Ohio, whom he described as a "fighter," and Scott Perry from Pennsylvania, who at the time supported the idea that the election was stolen from Trump and Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, whom Trump praised for "getting to the bottom of things."
The now public request to the Justice Department would be another case by former President Trump of disproportionate interference in authorities that were not under his control. The Justice Department actually operates independently of the White House. The transcript, however, is just the latest example of Trump's broad-based campaign to delegitimize election results in the last few weeks of his term in office. While he himself largely withdrew from the public eye after losing to Joe Biden in November last year, he had his lawyer Rudy Giuliani publicly declare several times that there had been electoral fraud.