Senate Judiciary Report on Trump, the 2020 Election & Trump-DOJ Loyalist SUBVERSION
“Subverting Justice: How the Former President and his Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election.”
Senate Judiciary Committee today released new testimony and a staff report
link to the transcripts of the Committee’s closed-door interviews with;
former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen,
former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and
former U.S. Attorney BJay Pak can be found here.
Moreover the sweeping Senate Judiciary Report -confirms that previous public reporting was in fact accurate - the report states/confirms in part:
Then White House counsel Pat Cipollone had threatened to resign in early January -the catalyst for threatening resignation was Trump contemplation of replacing tacting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark.
Senate Judiciary sent a referral to the DC Bar concerning Clark
Jeffery Clark should never hold any kind of position that requires public trust. Jeffery Clark was/is a Trump loyalist, who unapologetically supported numerous election fraud conspiracies. Additionally the Senate Committee also confirmed that they sent a referral to the DC Bar —based on information and belief that Clark may have violated his oath, as an officer of the Court.
“Clark's proposal to wield DOJ's power to override the already-certified popular vote reflected a stunning distortion of DOJ's authority: DOJ protects ballot access and ballot integrity, but has no role in determining which candidate won a particular election,"
Senate Judiciary Chairman Durbin statement;
…the Senate Judiciary Report affirms that we, our democracy and republic were
“..half a step away from a constitutional crisis, a full-blown constitutional crisis"
"First phase, Trump goes to court. Loses every lawsuit, which claims there was voter fraud in the election. Next, he decides he has to take over the Department of Justice and the attorney general, and have the attorney general push this narrative on to the states to tell them to stop from sending in their Electoral College vote totals. When that failed -- and our report goes into graphic detail of the efforts that were made -- the third step was to turn the mob loose on the Capitol the day we were counting the ballots,"
..Trump’s Maximum Pressure Campaign and the weaponizing of the DOJ to overturn the 2020 Election… presented the single most clear and present danger to our Country’s Constitution, our Democracy and our Republic. Period. Full Stop.
Election Subversion Scheme…
The Committee continues to investigate Trump’s efforts to involve DOJ in his election subversion scheme, including by pursuing Trump White House records that NARA has thus far been unable to produce and additional witness interviews as appropriate. Given the gravity of the misconduct the Committee has uncovered to date, however—and in the interest of making a public record of Trump’s efforts to compromise DOJ’s independence—the Committee is releasing this interim staff report. The report makes six primary findings:
The Report proffers new and affirms previous details and expounds on a series of deeply un-Democratic interactions;
In mid-December an Oval Office meeting was convened by president Trump and Rosen and Donoghue with an Oval Office meeting, included several phone calls and continued through January 3.
On December 14, 2020 Attorney General Barr submitted his resignation (see link for pdf of his resignation letter)
During the course of multiple calls, Trump claimed, without evidence that there was significant election fraud in Pennsylvania and Arizona (he lost both states, fair and square) — the Senate Judiciary Report disclosed that Trump told tRosen "people are saying" and pressured the Justice Department to look into numerous unsubstantiated election fraud rumors.
Trump also told the DOJ leadership, "You guys aren't following the internet the way I do," —this was confirmed during the ‘transcribed interviews aka depositions of both Donoghue and Rosen. (see previous article)
Rosen’s retort to Trump - that the Department of Justice;
"can't and won't just flip a switch and change the election."
Rosen’s response prompted Trump seek compliance (co-conspirator) with another Department of Justice Official -again forcing a unfounded and false announcement that the 2020 General Election was corrupt and then "leave the rest to me and the [Republican] Congressmen,"
Why has Mark Meadows not been indicted?
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows asked Acting Attorney General Rosen to initiate election fraud investigations on multiple occasions, violating longstanding restrictions on White House-DOJ communications about specific lawenforcement matters. Meadows asked Rosen to have DOJ investigate at least four categories of false election fraud claims that Trump and his allies were pushing. Between December 29 - January 1, Meadows asked Rosen to have DOJ;
Investigate various discredited claims of election fraud in Georgia that the Trump campaign was simultaneously advancing in a lawsuit that the Georgia Supreme Court had refused to hear on an expedited basis;
Investigate false claims of “signature match anomalies” in Fulton County, Georgia, even though Republican state elections officials had made clear “there has been no evidence presented of any issues with the signature matching process.”
Investigate a theory known as “Italygate,” which was promoted by an ally of the President’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and which held that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and an Italian IT contractor used military satellites to manipulate voting machines and change Trump votes to Biden votes. Meadows also asked DOJ to meet with Giuliani on Italygate and other election fraud claims.
Investigate a series of claims of election fraud in New Mexico that had been widely refuted and in some cases rejected by the courts, including a claim that Dominion Voting Systems machines caused late-night “vote dumps” for Democratic candidates.
Again why haven’t Mark Meadows & Jeffery Clark not been indicted?
Clark’s proposal to wield DOJ’s power to override the already-certified popular vote reflected a stunning distortion of DOJ’s authority: DOJ protects ballot access and ballot integrity, but has no role in determining which candidate won a particular election.
During a January 3, 2021 Oval Office meeting, which lasted over three hours and included DOJ officials; Rosen, Clark -Trump repeatedly pressured, lied, attempted to extort and retaliate against DOJ Officials who refused Trump’s ongoing and criminal scheme to over turn the 2020 Election..
"According to Rosen, Trump opened the meeting by saying, 'One thing we know is you, Rosen, aren't going to do anything to overturn the election… Over the course of the next three hours, the group had what Donoghue called 'a wide-ranging conversation' focused on whether Trump should replace DOJ's leadership, install Clark in Rosen's place, and send Clark's proposed letter—and whether Clark was even qualified to assume the Acting Attorney General position. Rosen and Donoghue told us that by this point, Clark's proposed letter and his potential role as Acting Attorney General were intertwined,"
Stop the Steal & a direct through line to the White House…
…the Senate Judiciary Report also confirms that Trump and his allies had several direct links to the “Stop the Steal” movement and ultimately calumniating into the January 6 Domestic Terrorism aka insurrection participated in the pressure campaign against DOJ.
Trump White House officials, including the President himself, outside Trump allies with ties to the “Stop the Steal” movement and the January 6 insurrection also pressured DOJ to help overturn the election results.
U.S. Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District, who led the objection to counting Pennsylvania’s electoral votes on the House floor in the hours immediately following the January 6 insurrection. Perry has acknowledged introducing Clark to Trump, and documents and testimony confirm that he directly communicated with Donoghue about his false Pennsylvania election fraud claims.
Doug Mastriano, a Republican State Senator from Pennsylvania who participated in Rudy Giuliani’s so-called election fraud “hearings,” spent thousands of dollars from his campaign account to bus people to the January 6 “Save America Rally,” and was present on the Capitol grounds as the insurrection unfolded. Documents show that, like Perry, Mastriano directly communicated with Donoghue about his false election fraud claims.
Cleta Mitchell, a Trump campaign legal adviser, early proponent of Trump’s false stolen election claims, and participant the January 2, 2021 call where Trump
Trump forced the resignation of U.S. Attorney Byung Jin (“BJay”) Pak…
I think the vast majority of us knew that Trump forced BJay’s resignation but it’s still stunning to read it in the Senate Judiciary Report but the fact that Trump and Main DOJ allowed Trump to ignore the FVRA (which stipulates the first assistant role) and in-conjunction with the DOJ succession — Trump ignored all of that to install his loyalists… 1
November 2020 Barr’s Memo
By pursuing false claims of election fraud before votes were certified, DOJ deviated from longstanding practice meant to avoid inserting DOJ itself as an issue in the election. Prior to the 2020 general election, DOJ’s longstanding policy and practice was to avoid taking overt steps in election fraud investigations until after votes were certified, in order to avoid inserting DOJ itself as an issue in the election.
Then-Attorney General Barr weakened this decades-long policy shortly before and after the 2020 election, including in a November 9, 2020 memo that directed prosecutors not to wait until after certification to investigate allegations of voting irregularities that “could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.” Consistent with this directive and following additional personal involvement by Barr, DOJ took overt steps to investigate false claims of election fraud before certification in one instance detailed to the Committee—and likely others.
Summary of NEW Details (apologies as it’s redundant)
Previously-unreleased transcripts of the Committee’s closed-door interviews with three key former senior DOJ officials: former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former U.S. Attorney BJay Pak. These witnesses cooperated with the Committee, and although their testimony was not under oath, they were obligated by 18 U.S.C. § 1001 to tell the truth.
New details of Donald Trump’s relentless, direct pressure on DOJ’s leadership. This includes at least nine calls and meetings with Rosen and/or Donoghue starting the day former Attorney General Bill Barr announced his resignation and continuing almost until the January 6 insurrection—including near-daily outreach once Barr left DOJ on December 23.
New details of then-Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division Jeffrey Clark’s misconduct, including his attempt to induce Rosen into helping Trump’s election subversion scheme by telling Rosen he would decline Trump’s offer to install him in Rosen’s place if Rosen agreed to aid that scheme.
New details around Trump forcing the resignation of U.S. Attorney Pak because he believed Pak was not doing enough to support his false claims of election fraud in Georgia—and then went outside the line of succession to appoint Bobby Christine as Acting U.S. Attorney because he believed Christine would “do something” about his election fraud claims.
New details of how, at Barr’s direction, DOJ deviated from decades-long practice meant to avoid inserting DOJ itself as an issue in the election—and instead aggressively pursued false claims of election fraud before votes were certified.
Confirmation that Mark Meadows asked Rosen to initiate election fraud investigations on multiple occasions, violating longstanding restrictions on White House intervention in DOJ law enforcement matters—and new details about these requests, including that Meadows asked Rosen to meet with Trump’s outside lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
The Report also made the following recommendations:
Congress should strengthen longstanding DOJ and White House policies restricting the circumstances under which DOJ and White House officials can communicate with one another about specific law enforcement matters.
DOJ should strengthen its longstanding election non-interference policy, which is meant to avoid inserting DOJ as an issue into a pending election.
The D.C. Bar should scrutinize Clark’s compliance with applicable bar rules.
The Committee is withholding potential recommendations about criminal culpability and criminal referrals until the investigation is complete.
Newly released documents:
Rosen Exhibit 1, Rosen Exhibit 2, Rosen Exhibit 3, Rosen Exhibit 4, Rosen Exhibit 5, Rosen Exhibit 6, Rosen Exhibit 7, Rosen Exhibit 8, Rosen Exhibit 9, Rosen Exhibit 10, Rosen Exhibit 11, Rosen Exhibit 12, Rosen Exhibit 13, Rosen Exhibit 14
Pak Exhibit 1, Pak Exhibit 2, Pak Exhibit 3, Pak Exhibit 4, Pak Exhibit 5, Pak Exhibit 6
Statement by Senator Grassley on Electoral College Certification
Statement by Senator Grassley: America Must Be Better Than This
Donoghue Exhibit 1, Donoghue Exhibit 2, Donoghue Exhibit 3, Donoghue Exhibit 4, Donoghue Exhibit 5, Donoghue Exhibit 6, Donoghue Exhibit 7, Donoghue Exhibit 8, Donoghue Exhibit 9, Donoghue Exhibit 10, Donoghue Exhibit 11, Donoghue Exhibit 12, Donoghue Exhibit 13, Donoghue Exhibit 14, Donoghue Exhibit 15, Donoghue Exhibit 16, Donoghue Exhibit 17, Donoghue Exhibit 18
So YES the nearly four hundred page Senate Judiciary Report is worth reading because the underlying documents take center stage.
-Filey
Let’s not forget about the Fulton County District Attorney’s ongoing criminal probe into Trump’s aggressive and likely unlawful pressure and arguably extortion and threats to Georgia State Officials…the Fulton DA’s letter is embedded in this Feb 2021 article (it’s literally the last 2 paragraphs)
Truly came extremely close to losing our democracy. Thank you. Each line is anxiety producing. Would like to see Meadows & Clark held accountable. We know so much more now as the details fill in. It was bad…very bad.. I hope the judiciary committee holds anyone obstructing this investigation by failing to appear before committee, with criminal contempt. It’s time to send a message that is strong & unyielding.
Reading your words and the report, reminds me of the real America.
FAAFO
So this is "their findings" is it?
Thanks for this.