In the last days of his presidency, Donald Trump reportedly considered forcing the Justice Department to overturn the results of the election. He backed off the plan when his White House counsel called it a “murder-suicide pact,” and government attorneys threatened to resign en masse.
According to a report from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Trump’s plan involves removing acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, and replacing him with a loyalist, Jeffrey Clark. Clark led the civil division of the DOJ and was an ardent supporter of Trump’s plan to overturn the results of the election.
Trump would send a letter written by Clark to key battleground states telling them that the DOJ had found election irregularities in their states and asking them to consider appointing a new slate of electors.
Rosen and other senior administration officials, including White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, his deputy Patrick Philbin and Clark, met with Trump in the Oval Office on Jan. 3 to discuss the plan.
Cipollone called it a “murder-suicide pact,” and indicated that he and his deputy would resign if Trump went through with it. Richard Donoghue, Rosen’s deputy also told Trump that US attorneys and other DOJ officials may also quit, the report said.
Trump finally relented and agreed to drop his threat toward the end of the three-hour long meeting, The New Times reports.
“This report shows the American people just how close we came to a constitutional crisis,” Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) said. “Thanks to a number of upstanding Americans in the Department of Justice, Donald Trump was unable to bend the department to his will. But it was not due to a lack of effort.”
