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Trump
asked
Justice
Department
to go to
Supreme
Court to
overturn
election:
Journal
Reuters.Com
Staff
WASHINGTON
- Former
President
Donald
Trump
considered
replacing
the
acting
attorney
general
with an
official
willing
to
pursue
unsubstantiated
claims
of
election
fraud,
and he
pushed
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 the
efforts
in the
last
weeks of
Trump’s
presidency
failed
because
of
resistance
from his
Justice
appointees
who
refused
to file
what
they
viewed
as a
legally
baseless
lawsuit
in the
Supreme
Court.
Other
senior
department
officials
later
threatened
to
resign
if Trump
fired
then-acting
Attorney
General
Jeffrey
Rosen,
several
people
familiar
with the
discussions
told the
Journal.
The
Justice
Department
did not
immediately
respond
to a
request
for
comment
from
Reuters
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,
concluding
there
was no
basis to
challenge
the
election
outcome
and the
federal
government
had no
legal
interest
in
whether
Trump or
Biden
won the
presidency,
some of
these
people
told the
Journal.
Then-White
House
counsel
Pat
Cipollone
and his
deputy,
Patrick
Philbin,
also
opposed
Trump’s
idea,
which
was
promoted
by his
outside
attorneys,
these
people
said.
After
his
Supreme
Court
plan got
nowhere,
Trump
explored
replacing
Rosen
with
Jeffrey
Clark, a
Trump
ally who
had
expressed
a
willingness
to use
the
department’s
power to
help
Trump
continue
his
unsuccessful
legal
battles
contesting
the
election
results,
the
people
told the
Journal.
Trump
backed
off that
plan
after
the
threats
from
senior
Justice
Department
leadership
to
resign
if Rosen
were
removed,
people
familiar
with the
discussions
said.
The
plan to
oust
Rosen
was
first
reported
by the
New York
Times.
A
Trump
adviser,
asked to
respond
to the
U.S.
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
reacted
with
fury on
Saturday
to the
New York
Times’
report,
with
Senator
Richard
Durbin,
incoming
chairman
of the
Judiciary
Committee,
saying
he would
investigate
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.”
Trump’s
relentless
and
baseless
claims
of
election
fraud -
and his
refusal
to
acknowledge
Biden’s
victory
-
culminated
on Jan.
6 when
Trump
urged a
rally of
his
supporters
to march
to the
Capitol
to
protest
the
certification
of the
results.
The
resulting
rampage
led to
five
deaths,
including
a
Capitol
police
officer.
The
Democratic-controlled
House of
Representatives
impeached
Trump
for a
second
time a
week
later
for
inciting
the
insurrection
at the
Capitol,
and a
Senate
trial on
the
charge
will
begin
the week
of Feb.
8. Biden
took
office
on
Wednesday.
Reporting
by
Timothy
Gardner
and John
Whitesides;
Editing
by
Colleen
Jenkins
and
Daniel
Wallis
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