Published 13:03 IST, January 23rd 2021
Trump, Justice Dept lawyer planned to oust acting AG to overturn election results: Report
In yet another shocking report, Donald Trump is believed to have weighed ousting the acting attorney general to install a loyalist in his place instead.
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In yet another shocking report, former US President Donald Trump is believed to have weighed ousting the acting attorney general to install a loyalist in his place instead. According to the New York Times, Trump planned to replace then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a lawyer at the Justice Department, to apply pressure on Georgia politicians to overturn the results of the race there. While Rosen had refused to back ex-president’s disputed claims that voter fraud had cost him the election, Clark, on the other hand, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians.
As per the report, Trump had also pressed Rosen to appoint special counsels to investigate what he said were irregularities in the election, though he never provided any evidence for his claims. Among the investigations that Trump wanted to launch was into the Dominion Voting Systems, a company that made the election equipment that Trump supporters falsely said had ties with Venezuela to prevent Trump’s reelection. Because Rosen had refused the then president’s entreaties to carry out any of the aforementioned plans, Trump was about to decide whether to fire Rosen and replace him with Clark.
However, Trump and Clark’s plot had failed after a group of Department of Justice (DOJ) officials uncovered the plan and threatened to resign en masse if the two followed through it. Rosen stayed in his position for the remainder of the administration, a decision by Trump which came only after Clark and Rosen made their competing cases to the former president in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice”.
Clark denies plotting with Trump
The NYT report was based on four former Trump administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. While speaking to the media outlet, Clark said that the account was false, however, he did not say what specifically the officials were mistaken about. He said that the senior Justice Department lawyers provide advice to the White House as part of their duties. He added that all of his official communications were constant with law. Further, Clark also noted he was a lead signatory on a request from the DOJ in December asking a federal court to toss a lawsuit meant to pressure then-vice president Mike Pence into overturning the election results during Congress’ certification of the Electoral College.
Donald Trump had rallied against the presidential election results in the final weeks of his administration, seemingly fixated on baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud. He had focused much of his attention on Georgia, a state no Republican presidential candidate had lost since 1992, however, Biden won there by about 12,000 votes. Trump had even called the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he had urged the officials to overturn the results.
13:03 IST, January 23rd 2021