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    Meadows Pressed Justice Dept. to Investigate Election Fraud Claims

    Emails show the increasingly urgent efforts by President Trump and his allies during his last days in office to find some way to undermine, or even nullify, the election results.WASHINGTON — In Donald J. Trump’s final weeks in office, Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, repeatedly pushed the Justice Department to investigate unfounded conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, according to newly uncovered emails provided to Congress, portions of which were reviewed by The New York Times.In five emails sent during the last week of December and early January, Mr. Meadows asked Jeffrey A. Rosen, then the acting attorney general, to examine debunked claims of election fraud in New Mexico and an array of baseless conspiracies that held that Mr. Trump had been the actual victor. That included a fantastical theory that people in Italy had used military technology and satellites to remotely tamper with voting machines in the United States and switch votes for Mr. Trump to votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr.None of the emails show Mr. Rosen agreeing to open the investigations suggested by Mr. Meadows, and former officials and people close to him said that he did not do so. An email to another Justice Department official indicated that Mr. Rosen had refused to broker a meeting between the F.B.I. and a man who had posted videos online promoting the Italy conspiracy theory, known as Italygate.But the communications between Mr. Meadows and Mr. Rosen, which have not previously been reported, show the increasingly urgent efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies during his last days in office to find some way to undermine, or even nullify, the election results while he still had control of the government.Mr. Trump chose Mr. Meadows, an ultraconservative congressman from North Carolina, to serve as his fourth and final chief of staff last March. A founder of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, Mr. Meadows was among Mr. Trump’s most loyal and vocal defenders on Capitol Hill, and had been a fierce critic of the Russia investigation.Mr. Meadows’s involvement in the former president’s attack on the election results was broadly known at the time.In the days before Christmas, as Mr. Trump pressed the lead investigator for Georgia’s secretary of state to find “dishonesty,” Mr. Meadows made a surprise visit to Cobb County, Ga., to view an election audit in process. Local officials called it a stunt that “smelled of desperation,” as investigations had not found evidence of widespread fraud.Mr. Meadows also joined the phone call that Mr. Trump made on Jan. 2 to Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, in which Mr. Trump repeatedly urged the state’s top elections official to alter the outcome of the presidential vote.Yet the newly unearthed messages show how Mr. Meadows’s private efforts veered into the realm of the outlandish, and sought official validation for misinformation that was circulating rampantly among Mr. Trump’s supporters. Italygate was among several unfounded conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 elections that caught fire on the internet before the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. Those theories fueled the belief among many of the rioters, stoked by Mr. Trump, that the election had been stolen from him and have prompted several Republican-led states to pass or propose new barriers to voting.The emails were discovered this year as part of a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into whether Justice Department officials were involved in efforts to reverse Mr. Trump’s election loss.“This new evidence underscores the depths of the White House’s efforts to co-opt the department and influence the electoral vote certification,” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the chairman of the committee, said in a statement. “I will demand all evidence of Trump’s efforts to weaponize the Justice Department in his election subversion scheme.”A spokesman for Mr. Meadows declined to comment, as did the Justice Department. Mr. Rosen did not respond to a request for comment.The requests by Mr. Meadows reflect Mr. Trump’s belief that he could use the Justice Department to advance his personal agenda.On Dec. 15, the day after it was announced that Mr. Rosen would serve as acting attorney general, Mr. Trump summoned him to the Oval Office to push the Justice Department to support lawsuits that sought to overturn his election loss. Mr. Trump also urged Mr. Rosen to appoint a special counsel to investigate Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology company.During the weeks leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, Mr. Trump continued to push Mr. Rosen to do more to help him undermine the election and even considered replacing him as acting attorney general with a Justice Department official who seemed more amenable to using the department to violate the Constitution and change the election result.None of the emails show Jeffrey Rosen, then the acting attorney general, agreeing to open investigations suggested by Mr. Meadows, and former officials and people close to him said that he did not do so.Ting Shen for The New York TimesThroughout those weeks, Mr. Rosen privately told Mr. Trump that he would prefer not to take those actions, reiterating a public statement made by his predecessor, William P. Barr, that the Justice Department had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”Mr. Meadows’s outreach to Mr. Rosen was audacious in part because it violated longstanding guidelines that essentially forbid almost all White House personnel, including the chief of staff, from contacting the Justice Department about investigations or other enforcement actions.“The Justice Department’s enforcement mechanisms should not be used for political purpose or for the personal benefit of the president. That’s the key idea that gave rise to these policies,” said W. Neil Eggleston, who served as President Barack Obama’s White House counsel. “If the White House is involved in an investigation, there is at least a sense that there is a political angle to it.”Nevertheless, Mr. Meadows emailed Mr. Rosen multiple times in the end of December and on New Year’s Day.On Jan. 1, Mr. Meadows wrote that he wanted the Justice Department to open an investigation into a discredited theory, pushed by the Trump campaign, that anomalies with signature matches in Georgia’s Fulton County had been widespread enough to change the results in Mr. Trump’s favor.Mr. Meadows had previously forwarded Mr. Rosen an email about possible fraud in Georgia that had been written by Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who worked with the Trump campaign. Two days after that email was sent to Mr. Rosen, Ms. Mitchell participated in the Jan. 2 phone call, during which she and Mr. Trump pushed Mr. Raffensperger to reconsider his findings that there had not been widespread voter fraud and that Mr. Biden had won. During the call, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Raffensperger to “find” him the votes necessary to declare victory in Georgia.Mr. Meadows also sent Mr. Rosen a list of allegations of possible election wrongdoing in New Mexico, a state that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani had said in November was rife with fraud. A spokesman for New Mexico’s secretary of state said at the time that its elections were secure. To confirm the accuracy of the vote, auditors in the state hand-counted random precincts.And in his request that the Justice Department investigate the Italy conspiracy theory, Mr. Meadows sent Mr. Rosen a YouTube link to a video of Brad Johnson, a former C.I.A. employee who had been pushing the theory in videos and statements that he posted online. After receiving the video, Mr. Rosen said in an email to another Justice Department official that he had been asked to set up a meeting between Mr. Johnson and the F.B.I., had refused, and had then been asked to reconsider.The Senate Judiciary Committee is one of three entities looking into aspects of the White House’s efforts to overturn the election in the waning days of the Trump administration. The House Oversight Committee and the Justice Department’s inspector general are doing so as well.Mr. Rosen is in talks with the oversight panel about speaking with investigators about any pressure the Justice Department faced to investigate election fraud, as well as the department’s response to the Jan. 6 attack, according to people familiar with the investigation.He is also negotiating with the Justice Department about what he can disclose to Congress and to the inspector general given his obligation to protect the department’s interests and not interfere with current investigations, according to a person familiar with the discussions. Mr. Rosen said last month during a hearing before the oversight committee that he could not answer several questions because the department did not permit him to discuss issues covered by executive privilege.Mr. Durbin opened his inquiry in response to a Times article documenting how Jeffrey Clark, a top Justice Department official who had found favor with Mr. Trump, had pushed the Justice Department to investigate unfounded election fraud claims. The effort almost ended in Mr. Rosen’s ouster.Last month, Mr. Durbin asked the National Archives for any communications involving White House officials, and between the White House and any person at the Justice Department, concerning efforts to subvert the election, according to a letter obtained by The Times. He also asked for records related to meetings between White House and department employees.The National Archives stores correspondence and documents generated by past administrations. More

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    Garland, at Confirmation Hearing, Vows to Fight Domestic Extremism

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeThe Lost HoursThe Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGarland, at Confirmation Hearing, Vows to Fight Domestic ExtremismPresident Biden’s nominee for attorney general told the Senate Judiciary Committee that investigating the Capitol riot would be his first priority.Judge Merrick B. Garland said he would restore independence to the Justice Department if confirmed as attorney general.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesKatie Benner and Feb. 22, 2021, 7:16 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Biden’s nominee for attorney general, said on Monday that the threat from domestic extremism was greater today than at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, and he pledged that if confirmed he would make the federal investigation into the Capitol riot his first priority.Judge Garland, who led the Justice Department’s prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombing, told the Senate Judiciary Committee on the first day of his confirmation hearings that the early stages of the current inquiry into the “white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol” seemed to be aggressive and “perfectly appropriate.”He received a largely positive reception from members of both parties on the panel, five years after Senate Republicans blocked his nomination to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.Judge Garland, 68, who was confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1997, pledged on Monday to restore the independence of a Justice Department that had suffered deep politicization under the Trump administration.“I do not plan to be interfered with by anyone,” Judge Garland said. Should he be confirmed, he said, he would uphold the principle that “the attorney general represents the public interest.”Judge Garland also said he would reinvigorate the department’s civil rights division as America undergoes a painful and destabilizing reckoning with systemic racism.“Communities of color and other minorities still face discrimination in housing, education, employment and the criminal justice system,” Judge Garland said in his opening statement. But he said he did not support the call from some on the left that grew out of this summer’s civil rights protests to defund the police.The Trump administration worked to curb civil rights protections for transgender people and minorities. It also barred policies intended to combat systemic racism, sexism, homophobia and other implicit biases.“I regard my responsibilities with respect to the civil rights division at the top of my major priorities list,” Judge Garland said.Judge Garland answered questions on a wide array of additional topics, including criminal justice reform, antitrust cases, the power of large technology companies, congressional oversight and departmental morale.Discussing the threat of domestic terrorism, Judge Garland said that “we are facing a more dangerous period than we faced in Oklahoma City.”He called the assault on the Capitol “the most heinous attack on the democratic processes that I’ve ever seen, and one that I never expected to see in my lifetime.”In addition to an immediate briefing on the investigation, he said he would “give the career prosecutors who are working on this manner 24/7 all the resources they could possibly require.”Battling extremism is “central” to the Justice Department’s mission, and has often overlapped with its mission to combat systemic racism, as with its fight against the Ku Klux Klan, Judge Garland said.But the hearing was also a reminder of how politics hovers over so many of the high-profile issues that will confront Judge Garland if the full Senate confirms him, especially as the Capitol riot investigation touches on members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle and more defendants claim that they acted on former President Donald J. Trump’s command to stop Mr. Biden from taking office.Asked by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, whether the investigation into the Capitol riot should pursue people “upstream” of those who breached the building, including “funders, organizers, ringleaders or aiders and abettors who were not present in the Capitol on Jan. 6,” Judge Garland replied, “We will pursue these leads wherever they take us.”Republicans focused primarily on two politically charged investigations from the Trump era: a federal tax investigation into Mr. Biden’s son Hunter Biden, and the work of a special counsel, John H. Durham, to determine whether Obama-era officials erred in 2016 when they investigated Trump campaign officials and their ties to Russia.Judge Garland said he had not discussed the Hunter Biden case with the president, and he reiterated that the Justice Department would make final decisions about investigations and prosecutions.“That investigation has been proceeding discreetly, not publicly, as all investigations should,” he said. He noted that the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware had been asked to stay on and oversee the investigation into Hunter Biden.“I have absolutely no reason to doubt that was the correct decision,” he said.Responding to a question about Mr. Durham’s investigation, Judge Garland suggested that he would let the inquiry play out but avoided making any explicit promises about how he would handle it.“I don’t have any reason — from what I know now, which is really very little — to make any determination,” Judge Garland said. “I don’t have any reason to think that he should not remain in place,” he said of Mr. Durham.About the disclosure of any report from Mr. Durham, he added, “I would though have to talk with Mr. Durham and understand the nature of what he has been doing and the nature of the report.”Senators Charles E. Grassley, left, Republican of Iowa, and Richard J. Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who leads the Judiciary Committee, during the hearing. Mr. Grassley called Judge Garland “an honorable person.”Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesSenator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the committee, said he would not “take exception” to answers about the Durham investigation that were “not quite as explicit” as he wanted “because I think you’re an honorable person.”Judge Garland has sterling legal credentials, a reputation as a moderate and a long history of service at the Justice Department. After clerking for Justice William J. Brennan Jr., he worked as a federal prosecutor for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington under President George H.W. Bush and was chosen by Jamie Gorelick, the deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton, to serve as her top deputy..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1amoy78{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.In addition to Oklahoma City, Judge Garland supervised high-profile cases that included Theodore J. Kaczynski (a.k.a. the Unabomber) and the bombing at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 before being confirmed to the federal appeals court. When Mr. Obama nominated him to the Supreme Court in 2016, he was widely portrayed as a moderate.Key Republicans including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a member of the committee, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, have said they would support Judge Garland to serve as Mr. Biden’s attorney general.Democrats cast him on Monday as the necessary antidote to four years in which Mr. Trump had treated Justice Department investigators as enemies to be crushed or players to be used to attack his political enemies and shield his allies, especially as he sought to thwart and undo the Russia investigation.Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in his opening remarks that “the misdeeds of the Trump Justice Department brought this nation to the brink,” and that Judge Garland would need to “restore the faith of the American people in the rule of law and deliver equal justice.”Asked about Mr. Trump’s statement, “I have the absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” Judge Garland said that the president “is constrained by the Constitution” and that in any case Mr. Biden had pledged to not interfere with the department’s work.Judge Garland’s answer drew an implicit contrast with William P. Barr, who served under Mr. Trump as attorney general for nearly two years and appeared to see his role as serving the interests of the president much more than did other post-Watergate attorneys general.“Decisions will be made by the department itself and led by the attorney general,” he said, “without respect to partisanship, without respect to the power of the perpetrator or the lack of power, respect to the influence of the perpetrator or the lack of influence.”Judge Garland was for the most part measured and even-tempered, but he became emotional when he described his family’s flight from anti-Semitism and persecution in Eastern Europe and asylum in America.“The country took us in — and protected us,” he said, his voice halting. “I feel an obligation to the country to pay back. This is the highest, best use of my own set of skills to pay back. And so I want very much to be the kind of attorney general that you are saying I could become.”Judge Garland pledged to cooperate with a congressional investigation into the Trump Justice Department’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal immigration that led to large numbers of parents being separated from their children.“I think that the policy was shameful,” Judge Garland said. “I can’t imagine anything worse than tearing parents from their children. And we will provide all of the cooperation that we possibly can.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More