WASHINGTON (US) – Former President Donald Trump had plans of replacing the acting attorney general with an official willing to go ahead with claims of election fraud, which recurrently said to be unsubstantiated and he pressured the Justice Department to ask the Supreme Court to invalidate President Joe Biden’s victory, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said his attempts during the last weeks of Trump’s presidency went in vain, as he faced resistance from his Justice appointees who denied vehemently to file, as they viewed it as a legally baseless lawsuit in the Supreme Court.
Other senior department officials later threatened to leave if the then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen was fired by him, several people familiar with the discussions told the Journal.
The Justice Department did not however immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
Senior officials including Rosen, former Attorney General William Barr and former acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall refused to file the Supreme Court case, as they concluded that it had no basis on which the election outcome could be challenged and the federal government had no legal interest regardless of who won the presidency – Trump or Biden, some of these people told the Journal.
Then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, were also against Trump’s idea, promoted by his outside attorneys, these people said.
After his Supreme Court plan got nowhere, Trump went into a deep analysis of replacing Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a Trump ally who had expressed interest to make use of the department’s power so as to aid Trump, to take forward his unsuccessful legal battles surrounding the election results, the people told the Journal.
Trump called off that plan after the threats from senior Justice Department leadership of a resignation if Rosen were removed, said people familiar with the discussions.
The plan to oust Rosen was first reported by the New York Times.
A Trump adviser, when asked to respond to the US media reports, said the former president “has consistently argued that our justice system should be investigating the broader, rampant election fraud that has plagued our system for years. Any assertion to the contrary is false and being driven by those who wish to keep the system broken.”
Democrats were left fuming on Saturday to the New York Times’ report, with Senator Richard Durbin, incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, saying he would conduct inquiry into efforts to use the Justice Department to further Trump’s efforts to overthrow the election results. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling on the department’s inspector general, Michael E Horowitz, to investigate “this attempted sedition.”
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives impeached Trump for consecutively second time in a week later for instigating the insurrection at the Capitol, and a Senate trial on the charge will be initiated during the week of February 8. Biden took office on Wednesday.