The decision, in line with Donoghue, who took contemporaneous notes, featured the then-President repeatedly urgent the highest Justice Division officers over quite a lot of false and conspiratorial claims in regards to the election — all of which Donoghue shot down.
Yeah. Take into consideration that for a minute.
However within the context of the case being made by the January 6 committee, the quote is totally gorgeous and deeply revealing.
Take into account, first, the brazenness exhibited by Trump right here. He’s asking the 2 highest-ranking officers of the Justice Division on the time, who’ve already repeatedly made clear to him on the identical name that his claims of election fraud are spurious, to simply say that there was fraud — and be completed with it.
Second, the quote reveals — or, in fact, re-reveals — the utter misunderstanding (and contempt) that Trump had for the Division of Justice.
Time and time once more, from the very early days of his time in workplace, Trump publicly expressed his frustrations that the DOJ wouldn’t merely do his bidding.
Trump repeatedly puzzled — through his Twitter feed and his personal public feedback — why his first lawyer common, Jeff Periods, had recused himself from the investigation into Russia’s makes an attempt to affect the 2016 election.
Regardless of hand-picking Periods’ successor, Invoice Barr, Trump nonetheless complained the probe, led by particular counsel John Durham, designed to look into the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation was not shifting shortly sufficient.
(Value noting: It wasn’t simply the Division of Justice the place Trump appeared to basically misunderstand his energy over them. He repeatedly referred to “my generals” and “my army.”)
The third factor the quote reveals is that Trump did not actually care — in any significant means — whether or not or not there was precise election corruption. Keep in mind that in the identical telephone name the place Trump asks Rosen and Donoghue to “simply say the election was corrupt,” he had informed that the assorted claims he was making about election fraud had been false.
All Trump cared about was utilizing the imprimatur of the Justice Division as a defend by which he might then steer notion in favor of his election lies. Briefly: He knew what he was saying wasn’t born out by the info. He did not care. He simply needed the DOJ to say “corrupt” in order that he might meld and form that for his personal purpose: staying in workplace it doesn’t matter what.
It is not clear but whether or not the committee will advocate prison costs on the finish of all of this. Or whether or not the DOJ will cost Trump — or anybody else — in reference to their actions on January 6.
However what is clear is that Trump considered the Justice Division as simply one other arm by which to hold out his agenda. He by no means knew or cared in regards to the independence of DOJ, or why that was (and is) important to the well being of American democracy.
