January 6th , chapter 4 . Just call it corrupt and leave the rest to me . Section 1 . The DOJ found no significant evidence of fraud . Us Attorney General William Barr knew there would be trouble before all the votes had been counted , so , right out of the box on election night , the President claimed that there was major fraud on the way Barr explained .
I mean , this happened , as far as I could tell , before there was actually any potential . Looking at evidence , president Trump was quick to claim there was major fraud based solely on the phenomenon known as the Red Mirage .
As explained elsewhere in this report , democrats were more inclined to vote via Maryland ballot during the 2020 presidential election than Republicans , who were more likely to vote in person on election day . This was widely known and partly as a result of President Trump's own public statements criticizing Maryland balloting .
It also created a gap in the timing of how votes were tallied . The early vote tally favored Republicans on election night , because the Maryland ballots would skew toward Democrats were not fully counted . This occurred not just in 2020 , but also in previous elections . The President knew of this phenomenon , but exploited it on election night too .
Nonetheless , as he and his allies had planned to do , president Trump exploited this timing gap and used it as quote the basis for this broad claim that there was major fraud . Bar said President Trump exploited this timing gap and used it as the basis for this broad claim that there was major fraud , bar said .
But the Attorney General noted that he didn't think much of that . People had been talking for weeks and everyone understood for weeks that that was going to be what happened . On election night .
Bar explained Cities with Democratic majorities in the battleground states wouldn't have their votes fully counted until the end of the cycle , with a lot of Democratic votes coming in at the end .
This was not some well guarded secret , as everyone understood that the dynamic of election night in many states would be whether or not the Democratic votes at the end of the day would overcome the election day votes . Within days of the election , the President made an avalanche of fraud allegations .
It was like playing Wackermall , bar explained , because something would come out one day and the next it would be another issue .
Bar told his staff very soon after the election he didn't think President Trump would ever admit that he lost the election and he would blame it on fraud and then he would blame the actions and evidence on the Department of Justice Bar soon took steps to investigate claims of fraud of the 2020 presidential election .
Even in the absence of evidence , the DOJ's long standing policy had been to avoid any substantive investigations until after the elections results were certified . As the country's premier federal law enforcement agency , doj is justifiably concerned that its substantial power could influence the outcome of an election , and it has enacted policies to mitigate this possibility .
On November 7 , 2020 , the media declared former Vice President Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election . Two days later , on November 9 , attorney General Barr authorized wider investigations into claims of election fraud .
Barr instructed DOJ and FBI personnel to quote pursue substantial allegations of voting and vote tabulation irregularities prior to the certification of elections in your jurisdictions . In certain cases , barr noted that nothing in his memo should be taken as any indication that the department has concluded that voting irregularities have impacted the outcome of any election .
Chapter 4 , section 2 . November 23 , 2020 , barr challenges President Trump's election lies . As Barr predicted , the president did call on him for information about alleged election fraud . Trump challenged him with the blizzard of conspiracy theories in three face-to-face meetings after the election . The first such meeting occurred on November 23 , 2020 .
On November 23 , the Attorney General spoke with the White House counsel , pat Cepollone , who said that it was important for him to come to the White House and speak to President Trump .
Barr had not seen the president since before the election in late October and the White House counsel believed that it was important that the Attorney General explain what the Department of Justice was doing related to claims of election fraud .
The president said there had been major fraud and that as soon as the facts were out , the results of the election would be reversed . Barr recalled . Trump continued for quite a while and Barr was expecting what came next . President Trump alleged that the Department of Justice doesn't think it has a role looking into these fraud claims .
Barr anticipated this line of attack because the president's counsel , rudy Giuliani , was making all sorts of vile , unsubstantiated claims and Giuliani wanted to blame DOJ for the fact that no one had come up with any real evidence of fraud .
Of course , by the time of this meeting , us Attorney's offices had been explicitly authorized to investigate substantial claims for two weeks and had yet to find any evidence of significant voter fraud . Barr explained to the president why he was wrong . Doj was willing to investigate any specific , incredible allegations of fraud .
The fact of the matter was that the claims being made were just not meritorious and were not painting out . Barr emphasized to the president that DOJ doesn't take sides in elections and is not an extension of your legal team . In the November 23 meeting , barr also challenged when the president trumped centralize .
He specifically raised the Dominion Voting Machines , which I found to be one of the most disturbing allegations . Disturbing , barr explained because there was absolutely zero basis for the allegations , which were being made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people , members of the public .
Americans were being deceived into thinking that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didn't count and that these machines , controlled by someone else , were actually determining it , which was completely nonsense .
Barr stressed to the president that this was crazy stuff , arguing that not only was the conspiracy theory a waste of time , but it was also doing a great , great disservice to the country . As Attorney General Barr left the meeting , he talked with Murray Meadows , the White House Chief of Staff , as well as Jared Kushner , president's Trump son-in-law .
I think he's become more realistic and knows that there's a limit to how far he could take . This medal said , according to Barr , kushner reassured Barr we're working on this . We're working on it . Barr was hopeful that the president was beginning to accept reality . The opposite happened .
I felt things continued to deteriorate between the 23rd and the weekend of the 29th . Barr recalled Barr was concerned because President Trump again meeting with delegations of state legislators and it appeared to him that there was maneuvering going on .
Barr had , quote , no problem with challenging an election through the appropriate process , but worried that he didn't have any visibility into what was going on and that the president was digging in Chapter 4 , section 3 , december 1 , 2020 . President Trump desired rate after . Barr says there is no significant fraud .
Attorney General Barr had been clear that DOJ was investigating claims of fraud . The department simply was not turning up any real evidence of malfeasance and certainly nothing that would overturn the election . Just as Barr feared , the president turned on DOJ anyway . On November 29 , 2020 , fox News' Maria Bartiromo interviewed President Trump .
It was his first TV interview since he lost his bid for reelection . The president claimed the election was rigged and rife with fraud . President Trump repeated various conspiracy theories , leading with the claim that the minions voting machines had glitches which moved thousands of votes from my account to Biden's account .
President Trump pointed to dumps of votes of reference of the batches of mail-in ballots that had been tabulated . Later , in the counting process , he rambled off various other spurious allegations , including the dead people voted in significant numbers . This is total fraud , trump said . And how the FBI and Department of Justice I don't know .
Maybe they're involved , but how people are getting away with this stuff is unbelievable . This election was rigged . The election was a total fraud . Where's the DOJ and FBI on all of this ? Mr President , bartiromo asked you have laid out some serious charges here . Shouldn't this be something that the FBI is investigating ? Are they ? Is the DOJ investigating ?
Bartiromo asked incredulously , taking an action ? The president replied Can't tell you where they are . He conceded that when he asked if DOJ and FBI were investigating everyone says yes , they're looking into it but he didn't leave it there . You would think if you're the FBI or Department of Justice , this is the biggest thing you could be looking at .
President Trump said when are they ? I've not seen anything . I mean just keep moving along . They go on to the next president . He claimed the FBI was not even investigating Dominion , adding the votes processed in its machines are counted in foreign countries . None of this was true .
Just six days earlier , attorney General Barr had explained to President Trump how DOJ and FBI were investigating fraud claims . Barr also made it a point to emphasize that the Dominion claims were nonsense . The president simply lied . The crazy stuff , as Barr put it , was all Trump could cite . Attorney General Barr then decided to speak out .
He invited Michael Bassamo , an Associated Press reporter , to lunch on December 1st . Barr told the journalists that to date we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election . That made the president irate . Later that evening , attorney General Barr met with Trump at the White House .
It was their second face-to-face meeting after the November election . At first Trump didn't even look at Attorney General Barr . The president was quote as mad as I've ever seen him and he was trying to control himself , barr said . The president finally shoved a newspaper with the AP quote in Barr's face . Well , this is , you know , killing me .
You didn't have to say this . You must have said this because you hate Trump . You hate Trump . Barr remembered him saying no , I don't hate you , mr President . Barr replied you know , I came in at a low time in your administration . I've tried to help your administration . I certainly don't hate you .
President Trump peppered him with unsupported conspiracy theories because he had authorized DOJ and FBI to investigate fraud claims . Attorney General Barr was familiar with the conspiracy theories raised by the president .
The big ones he investigated included claims such as the minion voting machine , switching votes and votes had been dumped at the end of the night in Milwaukee and Detroit .
Non-residents voted in Nevada , the number of ballots counted in Pennsylvania exceeded the number of votes cast , as well as a story about a truck driver supposedly driving thousands of pre-filled ballots from New York to Pennsylvania , among others .
Under Attorney General Barr , doj would also investigate a false claim that a video feed in Fulton County captured multiple runs of ballots for former Vice President Biden . As explained in detail in Chapter 1 of this report , there was no truth to any of these allegations .
But that didn't stop President Trump from repeatedly citing these fictional accounts , and I told him that the stuff his people were shoveling out to the public was bullshit . I mean the claims of fraud were bullshit . Barr recalled about the December 1st meeting and you know he was indignant about that .
I reiterated that they wasted a whole month of these claims on the minion voting machines and they were idiotic claims . President Trump repeated that there had been a big vote dump in Detroit , but Attorney General Barr quickly parried this claim .
There was nothing suspicious in how the votes flowed into a central location , barr explained , because that is how the votes are always counted in Wayne County . Moreover , barr pointed out that President performed better in Detroit in 2020 than he had in 2016 . Quote I mean . There's no indication of fraud in Detroit , barr said .
Barr explained that the thing about the truck driver is complete nonsense . Doj and FBI had investigated the matter , including by interviewing the relevant witnesses . There was no truck filled with ballots . Nothing that Attorney General Barr said during that meeting could satisfy Trump . So the President then shifted focus to Barr .
He complained that the Attorney General hadn't indicted former FBI Director James Comey and that the US Attorney John Durham's investigation into the origins of the FBI's crossfire hurricane investigation had made more progress . Look , I know that you're dissatisfied with me , barr said , and I'm glad to offer my resignation .
Trump pounded the table in front of him with his fist and said accept it . White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Eric Hirschman tracked Barr down in the parking lot after he left . They convinced Barr to stay in the administration , but his days as Attorney General were numbered .
President Trump was not going to stop spreading conspiracy theories , nor would the President cease in his effort to co-opt DOJ for his own corrupt political purposes . President Trump released a video on Facebook the very next day . He repeated many of the same lies , including the conspiracy theory about Dominion voting machines switching votes .
Trump also offered charts falsely claiming that fraudulent vote dumps had swung the election against him . Among the examples he cited was the supposed vote dump in Detroit , michigan . In fact , barr had already debunked this and other claims .
On December 3 , 2020 , rudy Giuliani appeared before the Georgia Senate Government Oversight Committee to allege that massive cheating had occurred during the election . Giuliani offered a video recorded on election night at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta , georgia , as a key piece of evidence .
Giuliani alleged that the video showed a secret suitcase of ballots being double and triple counted after Republican poll watchers had been inappropriately dismissed . The video was selectively edited and showed nothing of the sort .
The Georgia Secretary of State's office investigated and immediately debunked the claim , finding that the secret suitcase was just a secure box and nothing nefarious had occurred . President Trump , giuliani and others continued to push the lie anyway .
On December 4 , attorney General Barr asked BJ Pack , who was then the US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia to independently investigate the State Farm claim . Barr told Pack that this was a quote priority because he was going to go to the White House for a meeting and the issue might come up .
Barr asked Pack to try to substantiate the allegations made by Mr Giuliani . Pack watched the video from the State Farm Arena and asked the FBI to investigate the matter further .
Pack told the select committee that FBI agents interviewed the individuals shown in the video who was supposedly quote double and triple counting the ballots , and then determined that nothing irregular had happened to the counting and the allegations made by Giuliani were false and , as noted above , the supposed suitcase was a secure storage container used to store ballots .
With this evidence in hand , pack told Attorney General Barr that there was no substance to the allegations . Chapter 4 , section 4 . December 14 , 2020 . Barr submits his resignation . Finally , attorney General Barr had had enough . He submitted his resignation on December 14 , 2020 .
During an interview with the select committee , former Attorney General Barr reflected on his face-to-face encounters with Trump in November and December of 2020 . And in that context , I made clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff , which I told the president was bullshit .
You know , I didn't want to be part of it and that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave . When I did , I observed I think it was on December 1st that you know .
I believe you can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view , unsupported by specific evidence , that the election that there was fraud in the election . Around midday on December 14 , attorney General Barr met with Trump and Meadows in the Oval Office to discuss his resignation .
When he arrived , and even before Barr could mention his resignation , trump began speaking at length about the recently released Allied Security Operations Group report on Dominion Voting Machines in Antrim County , michigan .
While the Attorney General had been briefed on the allegations in Antrim County and did not find them credible , he promised the president that he would have DOJ investigate them . The Attorney General then told President Trump that he had come for a separate reason and wished to speak to the president privately , so Meadows left .
Barr told President Trump that it was clear that the president was dissatisfied with him as Attorney General and that he had decided to resign . President Trump accepted his resignation and asked Barr who would replace him . Attorney General Barr recommended Jeffrey A Rosen as Acting Attorney General and Richard Donahue is his deputy .
While President Trump called Donahue to discuss the possibility of warning him at the Attorney General , donahue advised that normal procedures be followed and Rosen be named Acting Attorney General . President Trump followed this advice and , upon Barr's departure , rosen became Acting Attorney General , while Donahue would function as his deputy .
Chapter 4 , section 5 Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donahue hold the line . Barr felt that he was leaving the department in the hands of two trusted lieutenants , but President Trump immediately began to pressure Rosen and Donahue , just as he had Barr .
On December 14 , 2020 , the day Barr resigned Molly Michael , special Assistant to the President and Oval Office Coordinator , sent an email to Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen . The email had two documents attached , both of which were labeled from POTUS .
The first was a set of talking points focused on false allegations of voter fraud in Anstrum County , michigan , and the second document was the same ASOG report the President had given Barr .
The next day , president Trump held a meeting in the White House with Acting Attorney General Rosen and Deputy Attorney General Donahue , cipollone Meadows , acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security , ken Cuccinelli and Acting General Counsel of the Department of Homeland Security , chad , maizel Barr , did not attend , even though he was not scheduled to leave DOJ until the
following week . The timing of the meeting was notable , as the previous day the Electoral College had met and cast their votes in favor of former Vice President Biden . During testimony before the select committee , donahue explained that the December 15 meeting was largely focused on the ASOG report .
According to Donahue , the President was adamant that the report must be accurate , that it proved that the election was defective and that he in fact won the election , and the Department of Justice should be using that report to basically tell the American people that the results were not trustworthy .
President Trump discussed other theories as well , including erroneous allegations of voter fraud in Georgia and Pennsylvania , but the bulk of that conversation on December 15 focused on Antrim County , michigan . President Trump asked why DOJ wasn't doing more to look at this and whether the department was going to do its job . The Department of Justice was doing its job .
In fact , attorney General Barr had ordered unprecedented investigations into many species claims of voter fraud . The President simply didn't want to hear the truth . The DOJ found that not one of the bogus claims was true .
As explained in Chapter 1 , the original vote totals in Antrim County were the result of a human error that had since been corrected , not the result of any problem with the minion machines or software . There was no evidence of fraud . Chapter 4 , section 6 , president Trump is Introduced to Jeffrey Clark .
On December 21 , 2020 , 11 House Republicans met with President Trump at the White House to discuss their plans for objecting to the certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6 .
After the meeting , mark Meadows tweeted quote several members of Congress just finished a meeting in the Oval Office with Donald Trump preparing to fight back against mounting evidence of voter fraud . Stay tuned . Among those in attendance was Congressman Scott Perry , a Republican from Pennsylvania .
By the next day , representative Perry had introduced a little-known DOJ official named Jeffrey Clark to the president . At the time , clark was the acting head of the Civil Division and the head of the Environmental and Natural Resources Division at the Justice Department . Clark had no experience in , or responsibility related to , investigating allegations of election fraud .
President Trump called acting attorney General Rosen virtually every day between December 23 and January 3 . The president usually discussed his dissatisfaction with DOJ , claiming the department was not doing enough to investigate election fraud . On Christmas Eve , trump brought up Jeffrey Clark's name . Rosen found it peculiar telling the select committee .
I was quizzical as to how does the president even know Mr Clark ? Rosen then spoke directly with Clark on December 26 . Clark revealed that he had met with the president in the Oval Office several days prior .
Clark had told the president that if he were to change the leadership of the Department of Justice , then the department might be able to do more to support the president's claims that the election had been stolen from him .
In his discussion with acting attorney General Rosen , clark was defensive and apologetic , claiming that the meeting with the president was inadvertent and it would not happen again and that if anyone asked him to go to such a meeting , he would notify Rich Donahue and Rosen . Of course , clark had good reasons to be defensive .
His meeting with Trump and Representative Perry on December 22 was a clear violation of the president's policy which limits interactions between the White House and the department's staff .
As Stephen Engel , former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel , explained to the select committee , it is critical that the Department of Justice conducts its criminal investigations free from either the reality or any appearance of political interference .
For that reason , the department has longstanding policies in place across administrations to keep these communications as infrequent and at the highest levels as possible , just to make sure the people who are less careful about it , who don't really understand these implications , such as Mr Clark , don't run afoul of these contact policies .
Rosen added that only the Attorney General or Deputy Attorney General can have conversations about criminal matters with the White House , or they can authorize someone from within DOJ to do so . Clark had no such authorization . Representative Perry continued to advocate on Clark's behalf , though .
The Congressman texted Meadows on December 26 writing Mark just checking in as the time continues to count down 11 days to 1-6 and 25 days to inauguration , you've got to get going . Representative Perry followed up . Mark , you should call Jeff .
I just got off the phone with him and he explained to me why the principal deputy position won't work , especially with the FBI . They will view it as not having the authority to enforce what needs to be done . Meadows responded I got it . I think I understand . Let me work on the deputy position . Representative Perry then sent additional texts .
Roger just sent you something on signal . Just sent you an updated file . Did you call Jeff Clark ? Chapter 4 , section 7 , december 27 phone call On December 27 , 2020 , president Trump called Acting Attorney General Rosen once again . At some point during the lengthy call , rosen asked that Acting Deputy Attorney General Donahue be comforted stand .
According to Donahue's contemporaneous notes , trump referenced three Republican politicians , all of whom had supported the president's election lies and stopped the steal campaign . One was Representative Scott Perry . Another was Doug Mastriano , a state senator from Pennsylvania , who would later be on the grounds of the US Capitol during the January 6 attack .
President Trump also referenced Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio , praising him as a fighter . Representatives Perry and Jordan had often teamed up to spread lies about the election . The two spoke at a stop to steal rally in front of the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg just days after the November election .
The pair also pressed their conspiratorial case during interviews with friendly media outlets . President Trump made a stream of allegations during the December 27 call , as reflected in his notes . Donahue considered the call to be an escalation of the earlier conversations , with the president becoming more adamant that they weren't doing their job .
Trump trafficked in conspiracy theories he had heard from others , and Donahue sought to make it clear to the president these allegations were simply not true . Donahue sought to correct President Trump in a serial fashion .
As he moved from one theory to another , the president returned to the discredited ASOG report , which Attorney General Rebar had already dismissed as complete nonsense . Asog had claimed , based on no evidence , that the Dominion voting machines in Antrim County , michigan , had suffered from a 68% error rate .
As noted above and in Chapter 1 , that was not close to being true . High partisan election officials in Antrim County completed a hand recount of all machine-processed ballots on December 17 , 2020 , with should have ended the lies about Dominion's voting machines . The net difference between the machine count and the hand recount was only 12 out of 15,718 total votes .
The machines counted just one vote more for former Vice President Biden than was tallied during the hand recount . Donahue informed the president that he cannot and should not be relying on ASOG's claims because it was simply not true .
This , however , did not stop the president from later repeating the debunked allegation multiple times , including during his January 6 speech at the Ellipse . Acting Deputy Attorney General Donahue debunked a series of other conspiracy theories offered by President Trump during the December 27 call as well .
One story involved a truck driver who claimed to have moved an entire tractor trailer of ballots from New York to Pennsylvania . There was no truth to the story . The FBI interviewed witnesses at the front end and the back end of the truck's transit route , looked at loading manifest , questioned the truck driver and concluded that there were no ballots in the truck .
Trump then returned to the conspiracy theory about voting in Detroit . Former Attorney General Bill Barr had already debunked the claim that a massive number of illegal votes had been dumped during the middle of the night , but the president would not let it go .
President Trump alleged that someone through the poll watches out and you don't even need to look at the illegal aliens voting . Don't need to , it's so obvious . The president complained that the FBI will always say there's nothing there because while the special agents , the line guys , supported him , the bureau's leadership supposedly did not .
This was inconsistent with Donahue's view , but President Trump complained that he had made some bad decisions on leadership at the FBI . President Trump also wanted to talk a great deal about Georgia and the State Farm Arena video , claiming it was fraud .
Staring you right in the face , trump smeared Ruby Freeman , a Georgia election worker , who was merely doing her job as a huckster and an election scammer . Trump said the networks meaning the television networks had magnified the tape and saw them running ballots through repeatedly .
The president repeated the lie the Democrats had closed the facility and then came back with hidden ballots under the table . He suggested that both Rosen and Donahue go to Fultons County and do a signature verification . They would see how illegal it is and find tens of thousands of illegal ballots .
President Trump kept fixating on the supposed suitcase in the video , but acting deputy attorney general Donahue debunked the president's obsession . There is no suitcase , donahue made clear . Donahue explained that the DOJ had looked at the video and interviewed multiple witnesses . The suitcase was an official lock box filled with genuine ballots .
An election worker simply did not scan ballots for former vice president Biden multiple times . All of this was recorded by security cameras . In response to what Trump was saying during the conversation , rosen and Donahue tried to make clear that the claims that Trump made weren't supported by the evidence . You guys must not be following the internet the way I do .
The president remarked . But President Trump was not finished peddling wild conspiracy theories . Trump pushed the claim that Pennsylvania had reported 205,000 more votes than there were voters in the fucking state , breaking character there . We'll look into whether we have more ballots in Pennsylvania than registered voters . Acting attorney general Rosen replied .
According to Donahue , they should be able to check that out pretty quickly . But Rosen wanted President Trump to understand that the DOJ can't and won't snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election . It doesn't work that way . I don't expect you to do that . President Trump responded Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me .
And the Republican Congressman Donahue explained that this is an exact quote from the president . We have an obligation to tell people that this was an illegal , corrupt election , president Trump told the DOJ team at another point in the call .
Trump insisted that this was DOJ's obligation , even though Rosen and Donahue kept telling him there was no evidence of fraud sufficient to overturn the outcome of the election . We are doing our job . Donahue informed the president Much of the info you're getting is false . The call on December 27th was contentious for additional reasons .
Trump did not want to accept that the DOJ was not an arm of his election campaign . He wanted to know why the department did not assist his campaign's civil suits against states . There was a simple answer there was no evidence to support the campaign's claims of fraud .
Donahue and Rosen also tried to explain to the president on this occasion and several other occasions that the Justice Department has a very important , very specific but very limited role in these elections . The states run their elections and DOJ is not quality control for the states .
Doj has a mission that relates to criminal conduct in relation to federal elections and also has related civil rights responsibilities , but the DOJ cannot simply intervene to alter the outcome of an election or support a civil suit . When President Trump made these demands on December 27th , it was already crystal clear that DOJ had found no evidence of systemic fraud .
The department simply had no reason to assert that the 2020 election contest was an illegal , corrupt election . People tell me Jeff Clark is great and that I should put it in President Trump's head on the call . People want me to replace the DOJ leadership .
Donahue responded sir , that's fine , you should have the leadership you want , but understand , changing the leadership in the department won't change anything . Trump didn't really care what facts had been uncovered by the DOJ . President Trump just wanted the department to say the election was corrupt . So he and the Republican Congressman could exploit the statement .
In the days to come , including on January 6th , when Rosen and Donahue resisted the President's entreaties , he openly mused about replacing Rosen with someone who would do the President's bidding . Chapter 4 , section 8 . Congressman Scott Perry calls Donahue . Toward the end of the December 27th call , president Trump asked Donahue for a cell number .
Later that day , representative Perry called Donahue to press the President's case . Representative Perry was one of President Trump's key congressional allies in the effort to overturn the election's results .
Perry was an early supporter of the Stop the Steel campaign and , as noted above , addressed the crowd at one such event outside the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg on November 5th of 2020 .
Perry was also one of the 27 Republican congressmen who signed a letter requesting that President Trump direct Attorney General Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate the regularities in the 2020 election . The letter was dated December 9th of 2020 , more than one week after Barr told the press there was no evidence of significant fraud .
There was no reason to think a special counsel was warranted . Representative Perry and other congressmen advocated for one to be appointed anyway . Perry attended the December 21st Oval Office meeting along with at least 10 other congressional Republicans to discuss the strategy for objecting to the electoral college votes on January 6th .
Along with 125 other Republican members of Congress , perry also supported Texas's lawsuit against Pennsylvania and three other states . That is , representative Perry supported Texas's effort to nullify the certified electoral college vote from four states , including his own home state .
Donahue took notes during this conversation with Perry and provided those notes to the select committee . The notes reflect that when Representative Perry called Donahue on December 27th , perry explained that Trump had asked him to call and that he , representative Perry , did not think DOJ had been doing its job on the election .
Perry brought up other unrelated matters and argued that the FBI doesn't always do the right thing in all instances . Perry also brought up Jeff Clark . He said he liked him and thought that Clark would do something about this , meaning the election fraud allegations .
On the evening of December 27th , representative Perry emailed Donahue with a set of documents alleging significant voting fraud that occurred in Pennsylvania . One document asserted the election authorities accounted 205,000 more votes that had been cast . Perry also shared the same claim on Twitter the following day . President Trump kept raising the same claim himself .
Sometimes there was an alleged discrepancy of 205,000 votes , sometimes it was supposedly 250,000 votes . Either way it was not true . Acting Deputy Attorney General Donahue forwarded Perry's email to Sky Brady , who was the US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania at the time . This Brady soon discovered there was no discrepancy whatsoever .
President Trump's supporters came up with a claim by comparing the Pennsylvania Secretary of State's website , which reported the total number of votes as 5.25 million , to a separate state election registry which showed only 5 million votes cast . The problem was simple Pennsylvania's election site had not been updated .
The totals for four counties had not yet been reported on the election site . Once those votes were counted on the site , the totals matched . This was simply not an example of fraud as President Trump , representative Perry and others would have it . Chapter 4 , section 9 December 28 , 2020 the Clark Letter .
On December 28 , 2020 , jeffrey Clark sent the five-page draft letter to Donahue and Rosen . The letter was addressed to three Georgia state officials Governor Brian Kemp , speaker of the House David Raulston and President Pro Temporary of the Senate , butch Miller . It contained places for Rosen and Donahue to affix their signatures , which they steadfastly refused to do .
The letter , if signed and sent , may very well have provoked a constitutional crisis . The letter was attached to an email from Clark in which he requested authorization to attend a classified briefing by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence , the ODNI , led by DNI Ratcliffe , on foreign election interference issues .
Odni did not find any foreign interference in the voting process or counting , but Clark apparently believed some of the conspiracy theories that had been floated . Specifically , clark claimed that quote hackers have evidence in the public domain that a dominion machine accessed the internet through a smart thermostat , with the net connection trail leading back to China .
Clark added ODNI may have additional classified evidence . This crackpot claim had been shared by other Trump officials and associates as well . Ultimately , after Clark received the ODNI briefing , he acknowledged to Donahue that there was nothing in that briefing that would have supported his early suspicion about foreign involvement .
Clark intended to send the letter to officials in Georgia and several other contested states that President Trump needed to flip if he was going to overturn the election results . The Department of Justice is investigating various irregularities in the 2020 election for President of the United States . Clark wrote .
Clark continued the department will update you as we are able on investigatory progress , but at this time we have identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states , including the state of Georgia . Clark continued by arguing that Georgia state legislature should call a special session .
In light of these developments , the department recommends that the Georgia General Assembly should convene in special session so that its legislators are in a special position to take additional testimony , receive new evidence and deliberate on the matter , consistent with its duties under the US Constitution . Clark wrote .
Clark referenced the fake electors that the president and his campaign organized and argued that there were two competing slates of electors , both of which were legitimate .
The department believes that in Georgia and several other states , both a slate of electors supporting Joseph R Biden Jr and a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J Trump gathered on December 14 , 2020 at the proper location to cast their ballots , and that both sets of those ballots have been transmitted to Washington DC to be opened by Vice President Pence .
Clark wrote the letter was a lie . Senior DOJ officials Barr Rosen and Donahue had repeatedly stated the opposite . They found no evidence of fraud that would have impacted the election's results None .
But since mid-November , the Trump campaign's legal team under Giuliani attempted to execute its dual-track strategy of both filing lawsuits and convincing state legislatures in contested states to appoint separate slates of presidential electors for President Trump .
By late December , however , the dual-track approach had largely failed and no legislatures had sent a second lawful slate of electors for Trump to Congress . Clearly , president Trump and his campaign team could not get the job done . So the president and those around him sought to use the hefty imprimatur of the US Department of Justice to achieve the same thing .
No doubt a letter coming from the Department of Justice is different from a meandering call from Giuliani or one of his associates . And because it was December 28 , and there was little more than a week until the January 26 joint session of Congress , president Trump needed more , and soon .
Clark's letter , which laid out a plan that was almost identical to what President Trump and his team had pressured state officials to carry out virtually every day since the election , could have been just what President Trump needed .
Several examples demonstrate the parallels between President Trump's and Rudy Giuliani's approach to overturning the election in November and December and what Clark proposed in this letter . First , the letter sought to have the Georgia State Legislature convene a special session to focus on allegations of fraud in the election .
Giuliani and his team had been making calls to the state legislatures and telling them , in both official and unofficial state legislature committee hearings , that state legislatures should convene in special sessions .
They also argued that state legislatures had the authority to convene a special session themselves , despite limitations in state law requiring such a session to be convened by the governor . Clark concluded the same argument in his draft letter .
Additionally , the draft letter recommended that the Georgia legislature consider choosing the alternate fake slate of electors that sent fake electoral college votes to Congress and Vice President Pence .
Having state legislatures choose Trump's electors and states where President Trump lost was one of the Trump team's early goals immediately after the election , but it didn't work . When no state legislature appointed its own set of electors before December 14 , the Trump campaign arranged for electors to meet in contested states anyway and cast fake electoral college votes .
This letter , with the Department of Justice sealed at the top , was just one more way that President Trump and those close to him could pressure state officials to send competing electoral college votes to Congress for consideration during the joint session , despite former Vice President Biden's certified victory at each of the contested states .
Despite the similarities between the request and Clark's proposed letter and the request that President Trump and his team made as state officials for nearly two months , the extent to which Clark directly coordinated his actions with the Trump campaign and its outside advisors is unclear .
Clark asserted his Fifth Amendment rights and various other privileges to avoid answering the select committee's questions about these and other topics . Giuliani was asked during his select committee deposition whether he remembered discussing DOJ issuing a letter like Clark's , giuliani refused to answer because it implicated attorney-client privilege with President Trump .
But when asked if he recalled ever recommending that Clark be given election-related responsibilities at DOJ , giuliani said I do not recall saying to people that somebody should be put in charge of the Justice Department who isn't frightened of what's going to be done to their reputation , because the Justice Department was filled with people like that , and the investigation
has also revealed that Clark and John Eastman were in communication throughout this period . One person who had worked with Eastman and others in his circle was a lawyer installed to work with Clark the Department of Justice in mid-December , the final weeks of the Trump administration , named Ken Klukowski .
Klukowski was a Trump administration political appointee serving as a senior counsel under Clark in DOJ civil division After serving as a lawyer in the Office of Management and Budget for more than a year and volunteering as a lawyer for the Trump campaign after election day .
Klukowski only joined the department when the administration's personnel staff expedited his appointment because the White House presidential personnel office wanted him in soon . On the morning of December 28 , clark asked Klukowski to draft a Georgia letter for him . Clark dictated the substantive key points of the letter to Klukowski and told him exactly what to include .
After several meetings with Clark throughout the day to update him on progress , klukowski turned in his assignment and gave the letter to Clark , which Clark sent along to Acting Attorney General Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Donahue , as described above .
Donahue quickly responded to Clark's email , stating that there is no chance that I would sign this letter or anything remotely like this . The plan set forth by Clark was quote not even within the realm of possibility .
Donahue warned that if they sent Clark's letter , it would be a grave step for the department to take and it could have tremendous constitutional , political and social ramifications for the country .
Contrary to President Trump and Clark's wild claims about the election , donahue stressed that DOJ's ongoing investigations related to matters of such small scale that they simply would not impact the outcome of the presidential election . Clark's assertion to the contrary was baseless .
Donahue and Rosen reaffirmed their strong opposition to the draft letter in a contentious meeting with Clark on December 28th . Quote what you're doing is nothing less than the US Justice Department meddling in the outcome of a presidential election . Donahue admonished Clark , to which Clark indignantly responded . I think a lot of people have meddled in this election .
Under questioning by Rosen and Donahue , clark eventually also revealed that he had been in a meeting in the Oval Office with President Trump . Donahue demanded to know why the hell are we hearing your name from the President of the United States and a Congressman ?
When Clark was reminded that meeting the President without authorization or informing his superiors was a clear violation of the White House context policy , he retorted it's a policy . There's a lot more stake here than a policy .
In fact , the context policy was designed for situations just like this , where political figures might try to influence criminal investigations or legal actions taken by the Department of Justice , as President Trump is attempting to do . In the days that followed , clark called witnesses , got a briefing from ODNI and pursued his own investigations .
Acting Deputy Attorney General Donahue was shocked to learn that Clark did not cease his efforts even after learning there was no foreign interference . Instead of adhering to the facts , clark doubled down .
During a follow-up meeting on January 2 , clark acknowledged that he received the ODNI briefing and he acknowledged that there was nothing in the briefing that would have supported his earlier suspicion about foreign involvement , but he nevertheless quote spewed out some of these theories , some of which we'd heard from the President , but others were floating around the
Internet and media and just kept insisting that the Department needed to act and needed to send those letters . Chapter 4 , section 10 , december 29 meeting . The next day , rosen , donahue and Engel had a meeting with Mark Meadows , pat Cipollone and Cipollone's deputy , pat Philbin , in the White House Chief of Staff's office .
While the meeting dealt primarily with the President's transition , the group discussed a draft civil complaint modeled after Texas v Pennsylvania that the President wanted the Department of Justice to file , challenging the results of the presidential election , tentatively called United States v Pennsylvania .
The DOJ officials said that they had not had the time to thoroughly review the proposed suit , but initially indicated that it appeared to be flawed and did not seem viable for DOJ to file .
Meadows suggested that the DOJ leadership meet with William Olson and Kerr Olson , the two attorneys affiliated with the Trump campaign that had been working on the proposed suit , and added that Eastman and a retired judge from North Carolina named Mark Martin both had views about the lawsuit .
In this meeting , meadows also raised a new and outraged allegation of election fraud that an Italian company had been involved in changing votes in the presidential election .
According to Meadows , there was a man , whom Donahue later learned was in an Italian prison , who claimed to have information supporting the allegation , and that CIA officers stationed in Rome were either aware of the plots to interfere in the election or had participated in it .
Donahue described how it was apparent that Meadows was not clear on the specifics of the allegation but passed him on along to DOJ to investigate nonetheless . Following the meeting , donahue provided the information to the FBI , which quickly determined that the allegations were not credible .
Meadows and other senior officials in the Trump administration , however , pressed DOJ to investigate every allegation of fraud , regardless of how absurd or specious . In the days after the December 29 meeting with Meadows , senior DOJ officials more closely examined the proposed US vs Pennsylvania lawsuit and determined the DOJ could not file it .
Engel was principally tasked with examining the veracity of the suit and summarized his analysis in a series of talking points that he provided to Donahue on December 31 . Engel concluded that for multiple reasons , the proposed lawsuit lacked merit . First , the US government did not have stand in the challenge how a state administered its election .
Such a challenge could only be brought by President Trump as a candidate in his campaign or possibly an aggrieved electoral college suitor . Second , there was no identified precedent in the history of the Supreme Court establishing that such a lawsuit could be filed by the US government .
Third , by late December , states had already certified the results of the elections and the electoral college had met , so suing states by this point would not impact the results of the election .
Finally , unlike Texas vs Pennsylvania , which was one state suing another state , this lawsuit could not automatically be heard by the Supreme Court , so it should have been filed in a federal district court months prior , if at all , to have any possibility of impacting the outcome of the election .
When asked about it during his interview with the select committee , engel described US vs Pennsylvania as a merrily lawsuit and said there was never a question about whether the department was ever going to file it .
A senior DOJ official had already explained to President Trump multiple times in November and December of 2020 that the Department of Justice was strictly limited in what election-related actions it could take . It could not oversee states' actions in administering their elections and it could not support litigation filed by President Trump's campaign .
Nonetheless , trump continued to push DOJ to file this lawsuit over the following days and essentially act as an arm of his political campaign . Chapter 4 , section 11 , rosen's December 30th call with President Trump . Even after the December 29th meeting , trump and those working on his behalf still wanted DOJ leadership to file US vs Pennsylvania .
On December 30th , acting Attorney General Rosen had a phone call with Trump that included a discussion about the lawsuit . During the call , rosen clearly explained to Trump that DOJ could not file the lawsuit . Rosen said this doesn't work , there's multiple problems with it and the Department of Justice is not going to be able to do it .
According to Rosen , trump accepted what he said without argument , yet President Trump and his allies continued pressuring the Department to file the lawsuit . Chapter 4 , section 12 , december 31st meeting . On December 31st of 2020 , trump subtly returned to Washington DC from Florida , where he had been celebrating Christmas .
Shortly after Air Force One landed , rosen and Donahue were summoned to the Oval Office . Once again , they met with Trump that afternoon . President Trump was a little more agitated than he had been in the meeting on the 15th .
According to Donahue , the President remained adamant that the election had been stolen , that he won , that the American people were being harmed by fraud and that he believed the Department of Justice should be doing something about it . The President once again raised the prospect of naming Clark the Acting Attorney General .
Donahue and Rosen repeated what they had told the President previously , that he should have the leaders that he wanted , but it's not really going to change anything . President Trump asked why DOJ would not file a complaint with the Supreme Court alleging that the election was fraudulent . Rosen and Donahue explained once more that the DOJ did not have standing .
Doj represents the federal government , not the American people . President Trump was incredulous and became very animated . The President kept repeating the same questions how is that possible ? How can that possibly be ? Trump also floated the prospect of naming a special counsel , suggesting King Critchinelli from the Department of Homeland Security is a possible candidate .
This sounds like the kind of thing that would warrant appointment of a special counsel . Donahue recalled President Trump saying the President did not order the DOJ to name a special counsel , but he was clearly still thinking about it .
Donahue and Rosen didn't say a lot in response , but simply pointed out that there was no evidence to support the many individual allegations that had been made . So there was no evidence that would warrant appointment of a special counsel . Trump again raised Antrim County , michigan , allegations .
As mentioned above , bipartisan election officials in Antrim County completed a hand recount of all ballots on December 17 . This should have resolved the matter once and for all . There was simply no evidence that Dominion's machines had manipulated the result , but Trump would not accept this reality .
In the December 31 meeting the President also raised the prospect of seizing voting machines . Why don't you guys seize the machines ? He asked . You guys should seize machines because there will be evidence . Donahue recalled Trump saying . Rosen pushed back , saying the DOJ had no basis to seize voting machines from the states . They needed a search warrant .
But there was no evidence to justify one . Rosen explained to Trump again that DOJ has no responsibility for oversight as the states conduct the elections . Rosen added to that the extent that any federal agency is involved , it is the Department of Homeland Security which ensures software selection and quality control . At that point Trump called Cuccinelli .
Donahue recalled the President saying something along the lines of can the acting Attorney General is telling me it's your job to seize machines ? Rosen had said nothing of the sort , but Cuccinelli quickly shot down the President's line of inquiry , making it clear that the Department of Homeland Security had no such authority .
White House Counsel Pat Cipollone was also in attendance and supported the DOJ leadership throughout the meeting .
When Rosen spoke to Clark by phone on December 31st or January 1st , clark revealed that he had spoken to the President again , despite previously promising Rosen and Donahue that he would inform them of any other contact that he received from the White House .
Clark told Rosen that Trump had offered Clark the position of Acting Attorney General and asked him to respond by Monday , january 4th . Clark , however , said that he needed to do some due diligence related to claims of election fraud before deciding whether he would accept the President's offer . Chapter 4 , section 13, .
January 2 , 2021 , rosen and Donahue confront Clark again . On Saturday , january 2 , rosen and Donahue attempted once again to persuade Clark to stand down . The two reiterated that Clark stopped beating with the president .
Donahue reprimanded Clark , emphasizing that he was the boss and that Clark's ongoing contacts with the president were a violation of DOJ's White House contact policy . Clark acknowledged that he had been briefed by the ODNI , as he had requested , and that there was nothing in that briefing that would have either supported his earlier suspicion about foreign involvement .
Nevertheless , clark still wanted to send his letter to the Georgia and other contested states alleging voter fraud . During the conversation , clark confirmed President Trump had offered him the position of acting Attorney General Clark told Rosen that he would decline the offer if Rosen and Donahue signed his dishonest letter to officials in Georgia .
The two refused , once again making it clear that there was no way that we were going to sign that letter . According to Rosen and Donahue , rosen reiterated his decision in an email on the 9th of January 2 , writing . I confirmed again today that I am not prepared to sign such a letter .
That same day , president Trump attempted to coerce Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in a manufacturing enough votes to steal the election in that state . That call is discussed in Chapter 2 of this report , but one part of it deserves mention here .
During the same call , president Trump brought up BJ Pack , who Trump had appointed as the US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia . President Trump referred to Pack as your never Trump or US Attorney there . The implication was that Pack was not doing enough to validate President Trump's fictitious claims of voter fraud .
Just mention of Pack proved to be ominous . Chapter 4 , section 13, . January 3 , 2021 , clark informs DOJ leadership that he will accept President Trump's offer . On January 3 , clark informed Rosen that he had decided to accept the President's offer to serve as the acting Attorney General . Clark offered Rosen the position of his deputy .
Rosen thought that Clark's offer was preposterous and nonsensical . Rosen told the select committee that there was no universe where I was going to do that , to stay on and support someone else doing things that were not consistent with what I thought should be done .
Donahue believed it was a done deal and Clark would become the head of the Department of Justice , but Pat Cipollone told Rosen that it was not a done deal and that quote we should fight this out at the White House . White House call logs from January 3 show that Trump and Clark spoke four times that day , starting at 6.59 am .
The first three calls of the day , two in the morning and one in the early afternoon show the President Trump spoke with Mr Jeffrey Clark . The final call between the two of them , from 4.19 to 4.22 pm , however , shows that President Trump spoke , to quote Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Clark , suggesting that Clark had in fact accepted the President's offer .
Acting Attorney General Rosen told the select committee that he would have felt comfortable being replaced by either Donahue or Engel , but he did not want for the Department of Justice to be put in a posture where it would be doing things that were not consistent with the truth were not consistent with his own appropriate role or were not consistent with the
Constitution . As a result , rosen took four immediate steps to try to prevent Clark's ascension to Attorney General . First , he called Mark Meadows and asked him to set up a meeting for that evening with President Trump .
Second , he spoke to Pat Cipollone , who told Rosen that Clark's appointment was not inevitable and that he would also be at the meeting that evening to support Rosen and Donahue . Third , rosen called Joseph Engel and asked him to come to DOJ headquarters so he could attend the White House meeting .
Finally , rosen asked Donahue and another senior department attorney named Patrick Kovachmian to convene a meeting of the rest of the department's leadership to describe the situation in their favor and hear how they would react to Clark's appointment .
Kovachmian set up a conference call and , although some of the assistant attorney generals were not able to participate in the call , all of those that did agreed that they would resign if Rosen were removed from office .
He then drafted a resignation letter that read this evening after acting Attorney General , jeff Rosen over the course of the last week repeatedly refused the president's direct instructions to utilize the Department of Justice's law enforcement priors for improper ends , the president removed Jeff from the department .
Paydag , rich Donahue and I resigned from the department effective immediately . Kovachmian never sent the letter because the threat of mass resignation dissuaded President Trump from replacing Rosen . Regardless , the letter stated a plain truth President Trump was trying to use DOJ for his own improper ends . The January 3 , 2021 Oval Office Meeting .
If Rosen's request , the White House Chief of Staff , mark Meadow , arranged the meeting with the president at 6.15 pm that evening . We should pause to reflect on the timing and purpose of the meeting . Congress was set to meet in a joint session in less than 72 hours . The states had already certified their electors .
Former Vice President Biden was going to be certified as the winner of the 2020 presidential election . There was no material dispute over Biden's victory . Trump and his lawyers had not produced any evidence of significant fraud . Instead , they presented one nonsensical conspiracy theory after another . The DOJ and FBI were forced to debunk these claims , and they did .
None of this stopped President Trump's effort to subvert DOJ . Quite the opposite . Trump pushed forward with the plan to install Jeff Clark as the acting attorney general , apparently to attempt to interfere with the certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6 . It is for this reason Rosen requested an emergency meeting on January 3 .
Before heading into the Oval Office , rosen and Donahue discussed the possible leadership change with Cipolloni and Pat Philbin . They were completely opposed to what Donahue explained . In fact , no one who attended the Oval Office meeting supported the leadership change , other than Jeff Clark . Donahue didn't initially join the meeting , but the president soon called him in .
During the meeting , clark attempted to defend the last minute move to make him act as a attorney general . Clark said he would conduct real investigations that would , in his view , uncover widespread fraud .
Clark declared that this was the last opportunity to sort of set things straight with this defective election and he had the intelligence , the will and desire to pursue these matters in the way that the president thought most appropriate . Everyone else quickly disagreed .
President Trump asked Donahue and Engel what they would do , and both confirmed that they would resign . Donahue added that theirs would not be the only resignations Quote . You should understand that your entire department leadership will resign . Donahue recalled saying this included every assistant attorney general .
Mr President , these aren't bureaucratic leftovers from another administration . Donahue continued you pick them . This is your leadership team . You sent every one of them to the Senate . You got them confirmed . Donahue argued that the president would look bad in the wake of mass resignations .
What is that going to say about you when we all walk out at the same time ? Donahue recalled asking the president and what happens if , within 48 hours , we have hundreds of resignations from your Justice Department because of your actions ? What does that say about your leadership ? People reinforced Donahue's point , saying that Clark would be leading a graveyard .
White House counsel Pat Cipollone threatened to resign as well , describing Clark's letter as a murder-suicide pact . Cipollone warned that the letter would damage everyone who touches it and no one should have anything to do with it . Some of the participants in the meeting argued that Clark was the wrong person for the job of Attorney General .
Clark attempted to defend his credentials , arguing that he had been involved in complicated civil and environmental litigation . That's right , you're an environmental lawyer . Donahue fired back . How about you go back to your office and we'll call you when there's an oil spill ? The meeting lasted approximately three hours Only .
Toward the end of the Contention's affair , the President Trump decided to reverse his earlier decision to make Clark Acting Assistant Attorney General . Donahue recalled the President addressing Clark along the following lines I appreciate your willingness to do it . I appreciate you being willing to suffer the abuse , but the reality is you're not going to get anything done .
These guys are going to quit , everyone else is going to resign . It's going to be a disaster . The bureaucracy will eat you alive and no matter how you want to get things done in the next few weeks , you won't be able to get it done and it's not going to be worth the breakage .
Clark tried to change Trump's mind , saying history is calling this our opportunity and we can get this done , but Trump was clearly rattled by the threat of mass defections and reiterated that the change would not happen . Trump then wondered what would happen to Clark and if Donahue was going to fire him . Donahue explained that only the President had that authority .
That was the end of the matter and we all got up and walked out of the Oval Office , donahue recalled , but for one DOJ employee , the matter was not entirely settled . During the January 3rd meeting in the Oval Office , president Trump complained bitterly about BJ Pack , the US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia .
A barhead tasked , pack was investigating the State Farm Arena video early in December 2020 . Like the FBI and Georgia state officials , pack included that nothing nefarious had occurred . President Trump was dissatisfied . No wonder nothing was being found in Atlanta , because the US Attorney there is a never-Trumper . Donahue recalled Trump saying .
Donahue objected , saying Pack had been doing his job , but Trump insisted , pointing out that Pack had criticized him years earlier . This guy is a never-Trumper . Trump reiterated he should never have been in my administration to begin with . How did this guy end up in my administration ? The President threatened to fire Pack .
When Donahue pointed out that Pack was already planning to resign the next day , on Monday , trump insisted that it be Pack's last day on the job . Pack later confirmed to Donahue that he would be leaving the next day . Trump asked if those in attendance at the Oval Office meeting knew Bobby Christine , who was the US Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia .
Even though Pack had a first assistant who was next in line for Pack's job upon his resignation , trump wanted Christine to take the role . Christine did take over for Pack , but he did not find any evidence of fraud either . It was Donahue's impression that Christine concluded that the election matters were handled properly .
Later , in the evening of January 3rd , trump called Donahue to pass along yet another conspiracy theory . Trump had heard that an ICE agent outside of Atlanta was in custody of a truck field with a shredded ballot . Donahue explained that ICE agents are part of the Department of Homeland Security , so the matter would be under that Department's purview .
Trump asked Donahue to inform Ken Cuccinelli . That story , like all others , turned out to be fiction , where DOJ investigators evaluated the claim the truck was carrying shredded ballots , but they were from a previous election . All ballots had been shredded to make room for storing ballots from the 2020 election , chapter 4 , section 15 .
The Trump's unprecedented attempt to subvert the DOJ the most senior DOJ officials at the end of President Trump's term stopped him from co-opting America's leading law enforcement agency for his own corrupt purposes . Recall that .
Attorney General Barr commented you can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view , unsupported by specific evidence , that the election was fraud in the election . Richard Donahue concluded that Jeffrey Clark's letter may very well have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis .
Jeffrey Rosen summed up his short time as the acting Attorney General like this During my tenure , we appointed no special prosecutors . We sent no letters to states or state legislatures disputing the election outcome . We made no public statements saying the election was corrupt and should be overturned .
We initiated no Supreme Court actions , nor filed or joined any other lawsuits calling in a question the legitimacy of our election in the institutions . President Trump attempted to get DOJ to do each of those things .