Trump Pressed Justice Department to Go Directly to Supreme Court to Overturn Election Results (WSJ, 1/23/21):

– The Wall Street Journal: Trump Pressed Justice Department to Go Directly to Supreme Court to Overturn Election Results – The former president dropped the efforts to replace the acting attorney general after top DOJ officials agreed to resign en masse in protest if he succeeded, people familiar said:

In his last weeks in office, former President Donald Trump considered moving to replace the acting attorney general with another official ready to pursue unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, and he pushed the Justice Department to ask the Supreme Court to invalidate President Biden’s victory, people familiar with the matter said.

Those efforts failed due to pushback from his own appointees in the Justice Department, who refused to file what they viewed as a legally baseless lawsuit in the Supreme Court. Later, other senior department officials threatened to resign en masse should Mr. Trump fire then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, according to several people familiar with the discussions.

Senior department officials, including Mr. Rosen, former Attorney General William Barr and former acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall refused to file the Supreme Court case, concluding that there was no basis to challenge the election outcome and that the federal government had no legal interest in whether Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden won the presidency, some of these people said. White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, also opposed Mr. Trump’s idea, which was promoted by his outside attorneys, these people said.

“He wanted us, the United States, to sue one or more of the states directly in the Supreme Court,” a former administration official said. “The pressure got really intense” after a lawsuit Texas filed in the Supreme Court against four states Mr. Biden won was dismissed on Dec. 11, the official said. An outside lawyer working for Mr. Trump drafted a brief the then-president wanted the Justice Department to file, people familiar with the matter said, but officials refused.

After his Supreme Court plan got nowhere, Mr. Trump explored another plan—replacing Mr. Rosen as acting attorney general with Jeffrey Clark, a Trump ally in the department who had expressed a willingness to use the department’s power to help the former president continue his unsuccessful legal battles contesting the election results, these people said.

Mr. Trump backed off that plan after senior Justice Department leadership threatened to resign en masse if the president removed Mr. Rosen, people familiar with the discussions said.

Weeks before the Nov. 3 presidential election, Mr. Trump had predicted the outcome could be determined by the Supreme Court; that possibility was a reason he gave for rapid confirmation of his third appointee to the court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, following Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in September.

“I think this [election] will end up in the Supreme Court. And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Sept. 23. “Having a 4-4 situation is not a good situation.”

As challenges to the election results went nowhere in multiple state and federal courts, Mr. Trump and his allies placed their hopes in a lawsuit that Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton planned to file directly in the Supreme Court against four states that voted for Mr. Biden. The suit alleged that Texans’ rights were violated because Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin failed to follow their own election laws in the November vote.

Before the Texas suit was filed, a group of Republican state attorneys general spoke with Mr. Barr about getting the Justice Department to back the claim, particularly if the Supreme Court asked for the department’s views on the case, people familiar with the discussions said.

Mr. Barr consulted with Mr. Wall, who is the government’s advocate before the Supreme Court. Mr. Wall told Mr. Barr that Texas’s lawsuit was likely to fail because the state lacked legal standing to challenge other states’ administration of their own laws, the people said, accurately anticipating the grounds the Supreme Court ultimately cited in dismissing the case.

Mr. Barr told the Republican officials that the department couldn't be counted on to support their legal claim if the Supreme Court sought its opinion, these people said.

Representatives of Mr. Paxton and the Republican Attorneys General Association couldn't immediately be reached.

After the Texas case was dismissed on Dec. 11, Mr. Trump began pushing for the Justice Department to file its own lawsuit against the states directly in the Supreme Court, the people said. Frustrated that his wishes weren’t being implemented, Mr. Trump at one point planned to bypass the attorney general and telephone Mr. Wall directly, these people said.

Mr. Trump didn’t follow through with a phone call, but one of his outside lawyers sent over a draft legal brief he wished the department to file with the Supreme Court, these officials said.

After Mr. Barr resigned shortly before Christmas, Mr. Trump pushed Mr. Rosen to authorize the lawsuit. At Mr. Rosen’s request, the solicitor general’s office prepared a brief memo with talking points he could use in an effort to explain to Mr. Trump why the lawsuit wasn’t legally viable, the people said.

Mr. Clark denied involvement in a plan to oust Mr. Rosen, which was earlier reported by the New York Times. Mr. Rosen couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

“My practice is to rely on sworn testimony to assess disputed factual claims,” Mr. Clark said in a statement sent to The Wall Street Journal after the publication of the story in the Times. “There were no ‘maneuver[s].’ There was a candid discussion of options and pros and cons with the president. It is unfortunate that those who were part of a privileged legal conversation would comment in public about such internal deliberations, while also distorting any discussions.…Observing legal privileges, which I will adhere to even if others will not, prevents me from divulging specifics regarding the conversation.”

Mr. Trump has defended his efforts to change the election results by alleging, without evidence, that there was widespread fraud as an attempt to “honor” the votes of those who supported him and ensure Americans “can have faith” in the electoral process.

Mr. Trump’s push to employ the Justice Department in that effort drew sharp criticism from Democratic lawmakers.

“This powerful report shows how Trump came within a hair’s width of taking down our democracy,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) said Saturday. “Now my Senate colleagues must show spine and break silent complicity—and vote to convict,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s plan to orchestrate a last-minute change in the department was part of the broader effort by the former president and his allies to involve the Justice Department in their attempts to cast doubt on Mr. Biden’s November victory.

White House officials had pressured Atlanta’s top federal prosecutor to resign before Georgia’s Jan. 5 Senate runoff elections because Mr. Trump claimed he wasn’t doing enough to investigate unproven claims of election fraud there, the Journal previously reported, a matter now under investigation by the department’s inspector general, a person with knowledge of the probe said.

Atlanta U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak stepped down Jan. 4, the day after news organizations published a recording of a call between Mr. Trump and Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, in which Mr. Trump pushed the state officials to “find” enough votes to overturn the November presidential election results.

Mr. Trump acknowledged the call with Mr. Raffensperger, tweeting: “He was unwilling, or unable, to answer questions such as the ‘ballots under table’ scam, ballot destruction, out of state ‘voters’, dead voters, and more. He has no clue!” Mr. Raffensperger tweeted back: “Respectfully, President Trump: What you’re saying is not true. The truth will come out.”

After two recounts and one audit of ballot signatures, Mr. Raffensperger had concluded there was no evidence of widespread fraud that could change the results and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, also a Republican, certified Mr. Biden’s narrow win in the state on Nov. 20.

In Washington, Mr. Rosen became acting attorney general after Mr. Barr resigned Dec. 23. Mr. Trump and Mr. Barr’s relationship had become strained after Mr. Barr’s public assertion that the Justice Department hadn’t found evidence of widespread voter fraud that could reverse Mr. Biden’s victory, including claims of fraud, ballot destruction and voting-machine manipulation.

Even before Mr. Barr’s departure, Mr. Trump had called Mr. Rosen to the White House to pressure him to appoint a special counsel to investigate unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud and voting-machine manufacturer Dominion, the people said, a move Mr. Barr had concluded was unnecessary.

Mr. Trump and his attorneys had lost dozens of cases in courts at all levels, including the U.S. Supreme Court. In the five weeks after Election Day, the Trump campaign and other Republicans lost at least 40 times in six pivotal states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In several other cases, the campaign or allies withdrew claims after filing them.

Mr. Rosen refused, reiterating Mr. Barr’s conclusion that there was no widespread fraud.

—Timothy Puko and Byron Tau contributed to this article.

Pennsylvania Lawmaker Played Key Role in Trump’s Plot to Oust Acting Attorney General (NY Times, 1/23/21)

 – Pennsylvania Lawmaker Played Key Role in Trump’s Plot to Oust Acting Attorney General – The congressman’s involvement underlined how far the former president was willing to go to overturn the election, and Democratic lawmakers are beginning to call for investigations into those efforts (NY Times, 1/23/21):

When Representative Scott Perry joined his colleagues in a monthslong campaign to undermine the results of the presidential election, promoting “Stop the Steal” events and supporting an attempt to overturn millions of legally cast votes, he often took a back seat to higher-profile loyalists in President Donald J. Trump’s orbit.

But Mr. Perry, an outspoken Pennsylvania Republican, played a significant role in the crisis that played out at the top of the Justice Department this month, when Mr. Trump considered firing the acting attorney general and backed down only after top department officials threatened to resign en masse.

**Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General (NY Times, 1/22/21)

 – Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General: Trying to find another avenue to push his baseless election claims, Donald Trump considered installing a loyalist (NY Times, 1/22/21):

The Justice Department’s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month: One of their peers, they were told, had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen as acting attorney general and wield the department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results.

The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Mr. Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president’s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark.

The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed?

The answer was unanimous. They would resign.

Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud. Mr. Trump’s decision came only after Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark made their competing cases to him in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis.

**Off The Rails: An Axios Series Takes You Inside the Collapse of a President (Axios, 1/2021)

Off the Rails: 

Beginning on election night 2020 and continuing through his final days in office, Donald Trump unraveled and dragged America with him, to the point that his followers sacked the U.S. Capitol with two weeks left in his term. This Axios series takes you inside the collapse of a president.

Episode 1: A Premeditated Lie Lit the Fire: Trump’s refusal to believe the election results was premeditated. He had heard about the “red mirage” — the likelihood that early vote counts would tip more Republican than the final tallies — and he decided to exploit it.

Episode 2: Barbarians at the Oval: Trump stops buying what his professional staff are telling him, and increasingly turns to radical voices telling him what he wants to hear.

Episode 3: Descent Into Madness: The conspiracy goes too far. Trump's outside lawyers plot to seize voting machines and spin theories about communists, spies and computer software.

Episode 4: Trump Turns on Attorney General Bill Barr: Trump torches what is arguably the most consequential relationship in his Cabinet.

Episode 5: The Secret CIA Plan: Trump vs. Gina — The president becomes increasingly rash and devises a plan to tamper with the nation's intelligence command.

Episode 6: Last Stand in Georgia: Georgia had not backed a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992 and Donald Trump's defeat in this Deep South stronghold, and his reaction to that loss, would help cost Republicans the U.S. Senate as well. Georgia was Trump's last stand.

Episode 7: Trump Turns on Pence: Trump believes the vice president can solve all his problems by simply refusing to certify the Electoral College results. It's a simple test of loyalty: Trump or the U.S. Constitution.

Episode 8: The Siege: An inside account of the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6 that ultimately failed to block the certification of the Electoral College. And, finally, Trump's concession.

White House Forced Georgia U.S. Attorney to Resign: Pressure for resignation was part of broader push by President Trump to overturn state’s election results (WSJ, 1/9/21):

 – White House Forced Georgia U.S. Attorney to Resign: Pressure for resignation was part of broader push by President Trump to overturn state’s election results (WSJ, 1/9/21):

"White House officials pushed Atlanta’s top federal prosecutor to resign before Georgia’s U.S. Senate runoffs because President Trump was upset he wasn’t doing enough to investigate the president’s unproven claims of election fraud, people familiar with the matter said.

A senior Justice Department official, at the behest of the White House, called the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak late on the night of Jan. 3. In that call the official said Mr. Trump was furious there was no investigation related to election fraud and that the president wanted to fire Mr. Pak, the people said.

Mr. Pak resigned abruptly on Monday—the day before the runoffs—saying in an early morning email to colleagues that his departure was due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

Georgia Officials Reveal Third Trump Call Seeking to Influence Election Results (NY Times, 1/9/21)

– Georgia Officials Reveal Third Trump Call Seeking to Influence Election Results: In a December call, President Trump told a Georgia election investigator that the official would be a “national hero” for finding evidence of fraud. White House officials’ pressure on the federal prosecutor in Atlanta to resign was also revealed (NY Times, 1/9/21):

More than a week before President Trump called Georgia’s secretary of state, pressuring him to “find” votes to help overturn his electoral loss, the president made another call, this one to a top Georgia election investigator, in which he asked the investigator to “find the fraud” in the state.

The earlier phone call, which came to light on Saturday, along with the revelation that White House officials had pushed the top federal prosecutor in Atlanta to resign, underlined a broader push by Mr. Trump to overturn election results in the state.

Mr. Trump’s phone call, made in late December, was first reported by The Washington Post. The content of the Post report was verified by a state election official who requested anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak about the matter.

In the call, Mr. Trump said the investigator would be a “national hero” for finding evidence of fraud. At the time, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office was conducting an audit of more than 15,000 ballots in Cobb County, a populous suburb of Atlanta that was formerly a Republican stronghold but voted against Mr. Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

The audit appeared to be an effort to placate Mr. Trump and his allies, who repeatedly, and baselessly, argued that he lost the election in Georgia by around 12,000 votes because of a “rigged” system. The president also repeatedly alleged that there were problems with the signature-matching system by which election officials in the state verify the identity of absentee voters.

On Dec. 29, the office of Mr. Raffensperger, a Republican, announced that the audit had found no evidence of fraud.

The new details about the president’s personal pressure campaign on Georgia officials comes as Democrats in the House of Representatives announced their plans to introduce an article of impeachment against the president for “willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States,” a reference to the pro-Trump mob that violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. Mr. Trump is also facing growing calls to resign, while his cabinet is under pressure to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

A number of legal scholars have said that Mr. Trump’s call to Mr. Raffensperger, in which the president seemed to vaguely threaten Mr. Raffensperger with “a criminal offense,” may have violated state and federal laws prohibiting election interference, though some have also said it may be difficult for prosecutors to pursue the matter.

Earlier in December, Mr. Trump made a third call, this one to Gov. Brian Kemp, urging him to convene a special session of the Georgia legislature in hopes that lawmakers would overturn the election results.

Mr. Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger have rejected all of Mr. Trump’s efforts to get them to help him overturn the election results, even though both are conservative Republicans and Trump supporters. Mr. Trump has publicly attacked both men, spreading a baseless conspiracy theory about Mr. Raffensperger’s brother and promising that he would back a candidate in the Republican primary to challenge Mr. Kemp, who is up for re-election next year.

In a television interview on Monday, Mr. Raffensperger was asked if his office would open an investigation into the president’s phone call with him. He replied that because he had been on the Jan. 2 call, he might have a conflict of interest and suggested instead that such an investigation might be in the works by the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis.

Last week, a spokesman for Ms. Willis said that no investigation had been opened. But Ms. Willis, in a statement released last week, did not rule out the possibility, and called the news of the president’s call to Mr. Raffensperger “disturbing.”

The U.S. attorney in Atlanta faced similar pressure related to false claims of election fraud.

Shortly before the U.S. attorney, Byung J. Pak, abruptly resigned on Monday, the acting deputy attorney general, Richard Donoghue, relayed Mr. Trump’s dissatisfaction with his efforts to investigate false claims of mass voter fraud in his district, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose details of the phone call.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Mr. Pak was also upset when he discovered that Mr. Trump had criticized him during his phone call last Saturday with Mr. Raffensperger.

While Mr. Trump did not call out Mr. Pak by name, he falsely claimed that not enough had been done to uncover mass voter fraud in Fulton County, where Atlanta is. He added, “You have your never-Trumper U.S. attorney there.”

Mr. Pak had planned to announce his departure on Monday, the day before the Georgia runoff elections, according to a person familiar with his job search. But dismayed by Mr. Trump’s comments, he believed that it would be better to accelerate his departure and resign effective immediately, rather than give several days’ notice, according to a third person with knowledge of Mr. Pak’s departure.

Mr. Donoghue has also faced pressure to stand up unproven and false claims by Mr. Trump that he would have won the election but for extensive voter fraud in states like Georgia.

In phone calls and meetings in recent weeks, Mr. Trump pressured and berated politicians and officials, including Mr. Donoghue and the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, for not doing enough to overturn the results of the election, according to a person familiar with the conversations.

Despite Mr. Trump’s entreaties to do more on voter fraud, neither Mr. Rosen nor Mr. Donoghue has made any public statements on the matter. They have not supported Mr. Trump’s false claims that he won the election or undermined comments made by former Attorney General William P. Barr that there was no need to appoint a special counsel to investigate the matter.

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that a top Justice Department official had called Mr. Pak.

Officials at the department have quietly pushed back on efforts to undo the election, defending Vice President Mike Pence in a federal lawsuit that sought to pressure him to overturn the results, a move that took Mr. Trump by surprise, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The case was dismissed.