WASHINGTON -
The US Senate Judiciary Committee issued a comprehensive 394-page report, which was viewed by Al Jazeera Net, on the attempt of former President Donald Trump and a senior official in the Ministry of Justice to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The report included transcripts of interviews with former Justice Department officials about their last days in the Trump administration, and a former official's testimony that Trump expressed frustration with the Justice Department's refusal to file a case with the Supreme Court to challenge the results of the 2020 election, after concluding that he was not She has no capacity to file a case.
Jeffrey Clark used the authority of the Department of Justice to help President Trump undermine the election results, according to the documents (Reuters)
The role of the Ministry of Justice
Former Acting US Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen told congressional investigators that he believes President Donald Trump's refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election was unjustified, and that he "would greatly prefer if Trump chose a different focus in the final months of his presidency."
It is worth noting that Attorney General William Barr resigned on December 23 in protest of Trump's positions on the election results.
The documents shed new light on how Jeffrey Clark, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Affairs, has sought to use the power of the Department of Justice to assist the president, including by offering to write letters to some state legislatures telling them that the Department of Justice is investigating voting irregularities and urging them To consider the appointment of new lists of voters.
The report notes that Trump has directly asked the Justice Department nine times to undermine the election result, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has played a key role in pressuring Justice Department officials to investigate allegations of election fraud.
The Democratic-controlled panel's investigation also revealed that White House counsel Pat Cipollone threatened to resign in early January when Trump considered replacing Jeffrey Clark with then acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, because Clark was a supporter of election fraud plots.
The commission's report, the most detailed to date of Trump's efforts to nullify the election, called his behavior an abuse of presidential power.
Half a step from an unprecedented constitutional crisis
The report notes that the United States was "half a step away from an unprecedented comprehensive constitutional crisis" through 3 stages:
The first stage, Trump defied and rejected the election results, went to court, but lost all lawsuits, alleging that there was election fraud.
The second stage, Trump decided that the Ministry of Justice and the Attorney General would take over the task of defending his version of election fraud, with the minister asking the states to stop sending the results of the electoral college votes, but he failed.
The third step is to go to the mob and instruct them to go to the Capitol on the day the votes are officially counted and documented, hence the riots that occurred on January 6th.
The report criticizes the actions of Jeffrey Clark, who says he has become a critical player in Trump's attempt to use the Department of Justice for political gain.
The report did not include any indication of possible crimes and charges, because the investigations have not been officially completed yet.
Clark had pushed Rosen and Richard Donoghue, then-former Justice Department officials, to use the department to announce investigations into election fraud, demand the governor of Georgia appoint Electoral College members, and ignore the approved election results.
The report emphasized that allies and advisors of former President Trump did little to investigate allegations of election fraud.
The report refers to multiple phone calls, during which Trump claimed that there was election fraud in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona.
Trump told Rosen that "people are saying there is fraud" and that he is asking the Department of Justice to look into the rumours, according to the commission's report.
Trump also told the Justice Department leadership, "You don't follow the Internet the way I do," according to Donohue and Rosen's testimony.
The report notes that Rosen told President Trump that the department “cannot alter and alter the results of elections,” prompting Trump to simply request an official declaration from the Department of Justice that the elections were corrupt, and then “leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
The department found no widespread election fraud, and at the same time the Trump campaign was filing lawsuits questioning millions of votes in swing states.
The report found that Trump had promised, during a meeting that took place on January 3 last, that lasted 3 hours, to grant the vacant position of the Minister of Justice at the time after the resignation of Attorney General William Barr on December 23, to Jeffrey Clark if his plan to change the results of Elections in Georgia.
William Barr resigned on December 23 in protest of Trump's positions on the election results (Reuters)
The threat of mass resignations in the Ministry of Justice
The report goes on to note that at one point during the meeting, Donoghue and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel Steve Engel made clear that there would be mass resignations in the Justice Department if Trump went ahead with Clark Brosin's replacement — something Donoghue saw as "a very important context" for the then president. He determines his decision.
The report stated that Donoghue and Rosen also summoned a number of White House lawyers to pressure them to back down from Clark Brosin's replacement plan, and White House lawyers also pledged that they would resign if Trump took such a step.
Despite the threat of mass resignations, Trump "was for some time contemplating the idea of installing Clarke instead of Rosen as attorney general," the report notes.
Republican response
Shortly after the report was published Thursday morning, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley's office released a version of a Republican-sponsored report that disputed the Democrats' findings and defended Trump.