Trump Reportedly Pressured DOJ to Declare 2020 Election 'Illegal' and 'Corrupt'

Trump allegedly told DOJ officials the public was angry at the department because they failed to properly investigate his baseless claims of election fraud.

July 31, 2021

Newly released documents shed more light on Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

On Friday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform shared handwritten notes of a December 2020 phone call between the former president and then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. The notes, which were taken by Rosen’s deputy Richard Donoghue, allege that Trump had pressed the senior DOJ official to declare the election “illegal” and “corrupt” in an attempt to legitimize his baseless claims of election fraud.

“Understand that the DOJ can’t + won’t snap its fingers + change the outcome of the election,” Rosen reportedly told Trump. “[It] doesn’t work that way.”

“Don’t expect you to do that, just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,” Trump reportedly responded. “… We have an obligation to tell people that this was an illegal, corrupt election.”

The conversation took place just days after the resignation of former AG William Barr, who found no evidence that the election results were impacted by fraud. Though Trump has conceded defeat to Joe Biden, he has continuously tried to discredit the election, insisting it was “stolen” by the Democrats and some of his adversaries within the GOP.

“These handwritten notes show that President Trump directly instructed our nation’s top law enforcement agency to take steps to overturn a free and fair election in the final days of his presidency,” committee chairman Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, said in a statement. “The Committee has begun scheduling interviews with key witnesses to investigate the full extent of the former President’s corruption, and I will exercise every tool at my disposal to ensure all witness testimony is secured without delay.”