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The effort was part of Trump’s pressure on the Justice Department during his final weeks in office to reverse his electoral loss, which also included plans to fire Acting Attorney General Jeffery Rosen with a department lawyer A relatively unknown Justice who was prepared to use the department to support Trump’s false claims about voter fraud in Georgia, two people briefed on the matter told CNN.
The effort ultimately failed because those appointed by Trump to the Justice Department refused to press charges, according to the Journal. Rosen, along with former Attorney General William Barr and former Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, declined to file a case in the Supreme Court, citing that there was no reason to challenge the election result and that the federal government had no legal interest in whether Trump or Biden won the presidency.
Trump also backed down during the New Years weekend effort after senior Justice Department officials, including Senate appointees and other political staff, pledged to resign if Trump Rosen returned.
The move would have represented Trump’s most egregious intrusion into the affairs of the Department of Justice, after years of breaking with the decades-long presidential tradition of trying to limit the department’s clearly partisan political activity.
An outside lawyer working for Trump wrote a brief that the then president wanted the Justice Department to file, people familiar with the matter told the Journal, but officials refused.
Jeffrey Clark, the Senate-confirmed head of the Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division who assumed leadership of the DOJ’s civilian division during the final months of the Trump administration, had briefed his bosses, Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, whom he was meeting with Trump to discuss sending a letter to Georgian officials, falsely claiming the ministry was investigating serious allegations of fraud and denying final certification of Biden’s victory.
Rosen and others rejected the idea because it wasn’t true and because Rosen, and Barr before him, rejected Trump’s request to appoint a special advocate to investigate voter fraud.
Clark has denied any plans to oust Rosen, he told The Times on Friday, or that he made recommendations based on Internet conspiracy theories.
“My practice is to rely on sworn testimony to assess disputed factual allegations,” Clark told The Times. “There was a frank discussion of the options and the pros and cons with the President. It is unfortunate that those who were part of a privileged legal conversation are publicly commenting on such internal deliberations, while distorting the discussions.”
CNN has reached out to former Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller for comment. Trump declined to comment for the Times.
CNN’s Evan Perez contributed to this report.
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