Trump urged DOJ to go to Supreme Court to overturn election: report

Former President TrumpDonald Trump NYT: Rep. Perry was instrumental in Trump’s alleged plan to oust the interim Arizona GOP censorious state Republicans McCain, Flake and Ducey Biden and the British Prime Minister discuss the NATO and multilateralism in a PLUS call reportedly urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to take its attempt to overturn the presidential election results all the way to the Supreme Court, but the effort stalled after opposition from agency executives .

According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump asked the DOJ to file a complaint against the election result before stepping down last week, but a number of senior agency officials have refused to move the case forward. . These officials reportedly included Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, a former Attorney General. William barrBill BarrBudowsky: Democracy Won, Trump Lose, President Biden Inaugurated Two-Thirds Say Election Was Fair: The Hill’s Morning Report Poll – An Inauguration Like No Other MORE and former Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall.

The effort also met resistance from former White House lawyer Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin, the former White House deputy lawyer, the Journal noted.

According to the newspaper, a brief was drafted at one point by a lawyer working outside the administration for the effort.

“He wanted us in the United States to intend to prosecute one or more states directly to the Supreme Court,” a former administration official told the Journal. The official added that “the pressure got really intense” after the Supreme Court rejected an offer from Texas in early December that sought to overturn President Biden’s election victory.

The Journal reported that Trump considered ousting Rosen and replacing him with Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ lawyer, after the effort failed.

The Journal’s report came a day after The New York Times also reported that Trump was planning to fire Rosen and replace him with Clark in a bid to overturn the election results.

However, both newspapers reported that the effort failed after a number of senior department officials threatened to resign if Trump goes ahead with the plan.

In a statement last week to The Times, which spoke to four unidentified former Trump administration officials for its coverage, Clark rebuffed the report.

“Senior attorneys at the Department of Justice provide legal advice to the White House as part of our duties,” he told the newspaper. “All my official communications were in accordance with the law.”

He also highlighted his role spent last month as the lead signer of a DOJ request for a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at pressuring then-Vice President Pence to overrules the election result after Congress has certified the Electoral College vote.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill at the time.