U.S. Election: Trump considered replacing Justice Minister

Donald Trump considered replacing Justice Secretary Jeffrey Rosen with a lawyer from the department who would have helped him force Georgia officials to overturn election results in that state, U.S. newspapers reported Friday night. 

AFP

According to the New York Times, Trump only gave up on his plan when he learned that senior Justice Department officials would resign en masse if he went ahead with his plan.

The information, also reported by the Washington Post, comes just over two weeks before Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate. Trump is accused of encouraging his supporters to storm Capitol Hill on January 6 as congressional representatives certified the presidential victory of his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. 

Trump narrowly lost Georgia to Biden in the November presidential election in a vote he claimed was baselessly rigged.

According to U.S. newspapers, Trump became increasingly frustrated with Rosen's refusal to use the power of the Justice Department to interfere with the vote count.

He reportedly worked out a plan with Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department lawyer who supported his claims that his election victory had been stolen, to give him Rosen's position.

But in a three-hour trial involving the three men, Trump would eventually back down, under threat of massive resignations from the Justice Department, the New York Times wrote.

Clark categorically denied that he had devised a plan to oust Rosen. 

As for Trump, Rosen and the U.S. Department of Justice, they did not respond publicly to the claims published in the press.

In early January, the publication of an audio recording in which President Trump asked a Georgia official to "find" votes to reverse the presidential result in that state had already sent shockwaves through Washington.

Source: AFP