Capitol attack: Committee condemns “shameful” manipulation by Trump

During this fifth public hearing, the nine elected officials — seven Democrats and two Republicans who rejected their party — detailed Mr. Interfering with the results of the presidential elections.

Donald Trump didn’t just want the Department of Justice to investigate. He wanted the Ministry of Justice to help him legitimize his lies and baseless claim that the elections were riggedCommittee Chairman Benny Thompson noted.

Elected officials returned to tensions within the department in the days leading up to January 6, 2021, when the defeated president faced an internal rebellion while trying to install a relative at the head of the establishment.

It was a brazen attempt to use the Department of Justice to advance the president’s personal political interests.Mr. Thompson added.

Former Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Donoghue testified that he repeatedly told the former US president that his allegations of voter fraud were unfounded.

Mr. Trump simply repeated that he won the presidential election. “Just say the elections are fraudulent,” said the president, and leave the rest in the hands of the elected Republicans.Mr. Donoghue said, based on his remarks recorded during a telephone conversation with Mr. Trump and former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen.

Trump wanted to name someone close to him

And when he saw that senior officials in the Ministry of Justice refused to bow down, the battered president tried to install one of his relatives at the head of the institution. Jeffrey Clark, the middle-ranking official who has espoused the president’s theories about fraudulent elections, had contradicted the department’s findings — which found no evidence of fraud that could have altered the outcome of the November vote.

Jeffrey Clark also had to intervene on behalf of the department to refuse to certify the election result in the key Georgia state, where Joe Biden won only 12,000 votes in advance.

The commission heard that Mr. Clark had prepared a letter for Georgia’s elected officials, in which he claimed the department had uncovered evidence of widespread fraud in Georgia, which is untrue. But other Justice Department officials refused to sign the letter, and a White House legal adviser, Eric Hirschman, revealed that he told Jeff Clarke that sending the letter was a crime.

Mr Trump told Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Donoghue that he had been advised to fire them and appoint Jeffrey Clark as acting secretary.

” I answered it […] Mr. President, you need the right leaders for you, but you have to understand that the Department of Justice operates on the basis of facts, evidence, and laws. This will not change. »

The former assistant secretary of state also said he had warned Jeffrey Clark that his efforts to substantiate the fraud allegations It was nothing less than the interference of the Ministry of Justice in the results of the presidential elections.

Threatening to resign

Jeffrey Rosen, Richard Donoghue, Stephen Engel, a senior department official, and Pat Cipollone, the White House attorney, threatened to resign during a meeting with the president on Jan. 3, warning him they would take on the nation’s best federal prosecutors.

Donald Trump has dropped the designation for Jeffrey Clark, who refused to testify before the investigative committee.

The inquiry announced on Wednesday that two additional hearings would be held in July.

Congress cuts off work on July 4 for two weeks.

After a year of investigation, the commission wants to present its conclusions before the end of the summer, which puts Donald Trump to the core coup attempt. This culminated in the attack of hundreds of his supporters on the Capitol building in Washington on January 6, 2021, in which elected officials confirmed Joe Biden’s victory.

Images of chaos in and around the Capitol spread around the world and rocked American democracy for a few hours.