Senate Committee Report Shows Trump's Attempts to Overturn 2020 Election Results
The report reveals the extent to which the Justice Department resisted Trump's efforts to abuse presidential power.
advertisement
A report by the Senate Judiciary Committee titled Subverting Justice: How the Former President and His Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election, details Donald Trump's efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, Associated Press reported.
Trump tried to pressurise officials of the Department of Justice (DOJ), demanding them to declare the election results as illegitimate.
The report says that Trump tried, for "political purposes in an effort to maintain his hold on the White House", to use the Justice Department's powers, and in doing so "grossly abused the power of the presidency", AP report added.
Republicans have come up with a report themselves, which claims that Trump was merely worried about the fairness of the election system and not about his personal power or presidency.
But the Senate Judiciary Committee's report debunks this claim, further stating that the White House wanted the DOJ to file a draft brief with the US Supreme Court to overturn the election. The DOJ refused.
After Attorney General (AG) Bill Barr resigned, Trump threatened to replace the Acting AG Jeffrey Rosen with the acting assistant AG Jeffrey Clark, the latter being much more sympathetic to Trump's claims about the fraudulent election.
Several DOJ officials said they would resign if Rosen was replaced by Clarke.
Trump's lies about the 2020 election results culminated into the 6 January Capitol riots that killed five people.
(With inputs from Associated Press)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)