News / Politics

Trump asked DOJ to go to Supreme Court to overturn election: WSJ

Sunday, 24 January 2021 6:26 AM [ Last Update: Sunday, 24 January 2021 6:26 AM ]

The US Justice Department building (File photo)

Former President Donald Trump had pushed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to ask the Supreme Court to invalidate President Joe Biden's election win, the Wall Street Journal says.

Trump also contemplated firing acting attorney general with the intention of pursuing his claims of election fraud, the journal reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the matter.

He sought to replace Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a relatively unknown DOJ lawyer, who was eager to use the department to back Trump's claims in Georgia, two people briefed on the matter told CNN.

Clark, who had met Trump earlier this month through a Pennsylvanian politician, had vowed to use the DOJ to stop Congress from certifying the election results in Biden's favor.

The plan to oust Rosen was first reported by the New York Times.

Trump’s efforts, however, failed after his Justice appointees refused to lodge what they thought was a legally unfounded suit in the Supreme Court.

Rosen along with other senior officials including former Attorney General William Barr and former acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall said the federal government had no legal interest in whether Trump or Biden won the White House, some of these people told the Journal.

Other senior department officials later said they would resign if Trump sacked Rosen, several people familiar with the discussions told the Journal.

In addition, then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, did not support Trump’s idea either, which was first suggested by his outside attorneys, these people said.

"He wanted us, the United States, to sue one or more of the states directly in the Supreme Court," a former administration official told the Journal, adding, "The pressure got really intense" after a lawsuit Texas lodged in the Supreme Court against four states Biden had won was dismissed in early December.

Meanwhile, a Trump adviser 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.”

Trump's defiance of the presidential election result and his complaints about the US election system have tainted the image of US democracy echoed by its politicians in propaganda dictated by Washington.

Capitol Hill riots expose US ‘democracy for the sham that it is’: Scholar

The recent riots at Capitol Hill by Trump’s supporters have exposed American “democracy for the sham that it is,” American political analyst Dennis Etler has said.

His supporters stormed the Capitol Hill on January 6 after he announced that he will never concede, to show support for the former president’s "Stop the Steal" campaign.

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