Senate Judicial President wants to interview former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has indicated he wants to investigate allegations that former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and other White House officials may have helped the Trump’s lobbying campaign. Durbin told CNN that the committee also wanted to know if there were other people in the White House who opposed Trump’s behind-the-scenes efforts.

According to internal documents obtained by the committee, Meadows sent five emails in late December and early January to then Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, asking him to look into allegations of voter fraud in Georgia and New Mexico and other debunking theories that Trump won the election.

It remains to be seen if Meadows agrees to speak. Meadows declined to comment, and Republicans would have to sign a subpoena if he refused to come voluntarily.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, the committee’s top Republican, would not say Tuesday whether he would support a subpoena for Meadows.

“I will not answer this question until I have had the opportunity to think it over and talk to my lawyers about it.”

Grassley added: “He can call whoever he wants,” referring to Durbin. “It’s driven by the Democrats, and there’s nothing we can do about it. They’re going to call whoever they want but we’re going to be there to ask.”

During an extraordinary period in late December and early January, several sources familiar with internal White House discussions told CNN there was a clear division among senior advisers on how to deal with false allegations of fraud. electoral campaign pushed by Trump.

The internal division was particularly apparent, according to a source and documents obtained by congressional committees, in the way Meadows pushed the theories while former White House lawyer Pat Cipollone objected to such efforts.

Rosen testified for nearly seven hours on Saturday

“A guy who was Bill Barr’s assistant attorney general found a line he wouldn’t cross,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, said of Rosen after his nearly seven hours of testimony on Saturday. .

Whitehouse was referring to Rosen’s resistance to “sending a letter to various swing states, encouraging them to buy the big lie and take state action and do it on DOJ letterhead.”

When the documents came to light, Durbin said in a statement that “the new evidence underscores the depth of the White House’s efforts to co-opt the department and influence the certification of the electoral vote. It is a fire of five alarms. for our democracy “.

He added: “I will demand all proof of Trump’s efforts to militarize the DOJ in its electoral subversion program. Our democracy cannot bow to the deception of Donald Trump’s big lie.”

Documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee also showed that Meadows sent emails to Rosen asking him to investigate allegations of electoral fraud in those states, including those related to an unfounded conspiracy theory known as the ‘Italygate’, which claims that people in Italy have used military technology. and satellites to remotely transfer votes from Trump to Biden on American voting machines.

One of the emails appeared to indicate that Rosen had refused to set up a meeting between the FBI and a man who was promoting Italian conspiracy theory in videos online.

On Tuesday, Durbin made it clear that recent testimony from Rosen and former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue sparked the committee’s interest in hearing from Meadows, as well as others inside the White House who could have helped Trump’s lobbying campaign against DOJ officials at the time.

Durbin said on Sunday that Rosen revealed in his testimony this weekend “frightening” information about what had transpired in the Justice Department during the final days of the Trump administration.

“He told us a lot of things, seven hours of testimony. And I could add quickly: It was done on a bipartisan basis – Democratic staff and Republican legal staff asked questions during that time,” Durbin told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

Durbin said Rosen “was invited by the White House, the leaders of the White House, to meet with some people who had these crazy and bizarre theories as to why this election was not valid, and he refused to do so. do”.

“There were forces within the White House that were also pushing back the savage views of the president. But, that said, it was a very tense time in history. We are going to get to the bottom of this,” Durbin added. .

Former US lawyer BJay Pak will be the next witness questioned by the Senate committee, Durbin said on Monday. He is expected to testify this week.

Meadows also participated in this call with Raffensperger.

Critical moment around New Year’s Day

The House Oversight Committee obtained documents mentioning Donoghue which highlight a critical nine-day period in the week before and after New Year’s Day, during which the DOJ leadership came under pressure immense to validate several of Trump’s electoral fraud theories.

At that time, Cipollone was seen as an ally of DOJ officials pushing back Trump and others in the White House, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Cipollone argued to Trump at a crucial January 3 meeting that environmental lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who believed the votes had been secretly traded, should not lead DOJ

CNN has reached out to Cipollone for comment.

Cipollone was also against a proposal by Trump’s attorney for the DOJ to sign a brief supporting a Supreme Court case over voter fraud, the source said. Justice officials were successful in preventing Trump from potentially installing Clark as attorney general and getting involved in the failed Supreme Court case.

Meadows, however, was not at the Jan.3 meeting, according to the source.