Trump tried to enlist Justice dept to overturn election
Published: 04:06 PM,Jun 15,2021 | EDITED : 08:06 PM,Jun 15,2021
Donald Trump departs with White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows from the White House to travel to North Carolina for an election rally. — Reuters file photo
WASHINGTON: Documents released by a US congressional panel on Tuesday revealed new details of how then-president Donald Trump tried to mobilise the Justice Department last year to join his failed effort to overturn his election defeat based on his false claims of voting fraud.
The House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee, which sought the records, outlined a series of overtures made by the Republican former president, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and an outside private attorney, Kurt Olsen, pushing the department to act on Trump’s claims.
The department ultimately did not join the effort and numerous courts rejected lawsuits seeking to overturn election results in various states.
Congress also is investigating the deadly January 6 assault on the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters trying to stop the formal certification of Democratic President Joe Biden’s election victory.
“These documents show that president Trump tried to corrupt our nation’s chief law enforcement agency in a brazen attempt to overturn an election that he lost’’, said Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat.
These overtures were separate from the revelations that the Trump-era Justice Department secretly sought the phone records of at least two Democratic lawmakers, a move that led Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday to vow to strengthen policies aiming to protect the department from political influence.
The department under outgoing Attorney General William Barr, who left his post on December 23, and his short-term replacement Jeffrey Rosen decided not to act on the false claims of voting fraud.
— Reuters
The House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee, which sought the records, outlined a series of overtures made by the Republican former president, then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and an outside private attorney, Kurt Olsen, pushing the department to act on Trump’s claims.
The department ultimately did not join the effort and numerous courts rejected lawsuits seeking to overturn election results in various states.
Congress also is investigating the deadly January 6 assault on the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters trying to stop the formal certification of Democratic President Joe Biden’s election victory.
“These documents show that president Trump tried to corrupt our nation’s chief law enforcement agency in a brazen attempt to overturn an election that he lost’’, said Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat.
These overtures were separate from the revelations that the Trump-era Justice Department secretly sought the phone records of at least two Democratic lawmakers, a move that led Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday to vow to strengthen policies aiming to protect the department from political influence.
The department under outgoing Attorney General William Barr, who left his post on December 23, and his short-term replacement Jeffrey Rosen decided not to act on the false claims of voting fraud.
— Reuters