President Trump then apparently pressured Barr’s successor, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, to appoint special counsels and file briefs aimed at overturning the election results.[1] When Rosen refused, President Trump reportedly hatched a scheme to fire Rosen and replace him with a different official who would be willing to deploy DOJ’s resources in support of President Trump’s efforts to keep himself in office.[2] President Trump backed down only after he learned that most of DOJ’s political leadership would resign in protest if he fired Rosen.[3]
As this timeline indicates, President Trump’s rejection of the election results—and his steadily more extreme efforts to overturn them—persisted from Election Day through January 6. He did not cease his campaign even after the Electoral College met on December 14, with presidential electors casting 306 Biden votes and only 232 Trump votes. Nor did he cease after Senate Majority Leader McConnell recognized Mr. Biden’s victory: “Many millions of us hoped that the presidential election would yield a different result, but our system of government has processes to determine who will be sworn in on January the 20th. The Electoral College has spoken.”[4] Instead, President Trump responded to these developments by escalating and refocusing his attacks on Members of Congress, pushing them to reject the Electoral College vote and then engineer his retention in office. On December 18, for instance, he tweeted that “@senatemajldr and Republican
- ↑ Katie Benner, Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General, N.Y. Times (Jan. 22, 2021); Matt Zapotosky et al., Trump Entertained Plan to Install an Attorney General Who Would Help Him Pursue Baseless Election Fraud Claims, Wash. Post (Jan. 22, 2021); Jess Bravin & Sadie Gurman, Trump Pressed Justice Department to Go Directly to Supreme Court to Overturn Election Results, Wall Street J. (Jan. 23, 2021).
- ↑ Id.
- ↑ Katie Benner, Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney General, N.Y. Times (Jan. 22, 2021).
- ↑ Niels Lesniewski, McConnell Recognizes Biden Win: ‘The Electoral College Has Spoken, Roll Call (Dec. 15, 2020); Nicholas Fandos, Defying Trump, McConnell Seeks to Squelch Bid to Overturn the Election, N.Y. Times (Dec. 15, 2020).
