Senate Judiciary GOP argues claims of Trump pressure on DOJ after

Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are releasing dueling reports on former President Donald Trump’s alleged pressure on the Justice Department (DOJ) to investigate election-related claims during December 2020, with Republicans calling their counterparts’ claims overblown.

The GOP report, which was spearheaded by Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, cited interviews with top Justice Department officials, including former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, to argue that Trump and his top staffers “did not pressure” the DOJ to investigate specific election claims. 

It also played down Trump’s alleged zeal to follow through an idea from former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark to send a letter asking state legislatures to consider appointing replacement electors, and to fire Rosen.

The GOP report, for example, described a much-reported Jan. 3 White House meeting as an effort to “formally and finally decide the issues at play, which were two-fold: whether to send Clark’s draft letter and whether to remove Rosen as acting attorney general and replace him with Clark.”

TRUMP HEADS TO IOWA AMID RECORD HIGH POLL NUMBERS IN KEY 2024 STATE

The GOP report says Trump “listened to all seven individuals” in the meeting and that it “culminated in President Trump rejecting sending Clark’s draft letter and rejecting terminating Rosen.”

The Republicans’ report came to significantly different conclusions than the Democrats’ interim report on the committee’s investigation. The New York Times published many of the details of that report Thursday, including that it likely will be released to the public this week. 

According to The Times, the Democrats’ report characterized the Jan. 3 meeting as an intense exchange in which multiple top Trump officials threatened to resign in order to stop Trump from going forward with a “murder-suicide pact.” 

“This report shows the American people just how close we came to a constitutional crisis,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., whose office led the committee’s main report, said, as The Times reported. 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in October 2020.
(Susan Walsh / POOL /AFP via Getty Images, File)

The Republicans’ report, meanwhile, presented the same Jan. 3 exchange noted in The Times as having happened in a more businesslike fashion. 

PENCE SAYS HE’S SPOKEN WITH TRUMP ‘PROBABLY A DOZEN TIMES’ SINCE LEAVING OFFICE

“[Former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard] Donoghue noted in his testimony that, until this meeting, President Trump did not fully understand the gravity of his advisors’ concerns with Clark’s plan, which were serious enough that they and other senior DOJ leaders had stated they would resign if Clark was made Acting Attorney General and his plan was implemented,” the GOP report said. 

“President Trump then turned to Donoghue and asked if he would resign if Clark became Acting Attorney General, to which he answered in…