Democrats Release Emails Showing Trump Pressured DOJ to Overturn Election

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a 230+ page document on Tuesday containing emails from Donald Trump and his allies. The emails reveal an extensive pressure campaign aimed at the U.S. Department of Justice by the former president who repeatedly encouraged the department to investigate unfounded claims of voter fraud in key swing states and asked that they engage in litigation to attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. 

The emails reveal more details of Trump’s unprecedented effort to leverage the DOJ for his own political gain. After firing former Attorney General William Barr when he refused to lie about election fraud last year, Trump replaced him with Jeffrey Rosen. Trump then repeatedly pushed Rosen to investigate non-existent voter fraud, and pressured him to file litigation on behalf of the United States that sought to overturn the election results. The emails show Rosen and another DOJ official, Richard Donoghue, rejecting political pressure from the White House, calling the unsubstantiated evidence of fraud sent to them by Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows “[p]ure insanity.” After Rosen refused to engage with the White House’s pressure campaign, another DOJ official, Patrick Hovakimian, said in an email that “it sounds like Rosen and the cause of justice won.” 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, has requested that Meadows, Donoghue and other DOJ officials testify before the committee as they investigate Trump’s campaign to overturn the election.

Read the full emails here.