acting attorney general trumps efforts subvert

Cipollone Patrick Philbin, his deputy and another lawyer who did not work for the counsel’s office, Eric Herschmann, were working in tandem to push back on some of the more outlandish ideas being recommended. At the time, the White House counsel, Pat A. It was unclear which White House lawyer Mr. “While time to act was short when we spoke on Christmas Day, time is about to run out,” he wrote. Trump that he believed the Justice Department “will do nothing except continue to run out the clock.” Trump in Texas had brought challenging the election results in Pennsylvania, saying the plaintiffs lacked standing. The court had declined to hear a case that allies of Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment about the former president’s relationship with Mr. Olson did not respond to requests for comment.Ī spokesman for Mr. Olson’s role in pushing forward plans to overturn the 2020 election. 6 attack on the Capitol said the committee was aware that Mr. Trump’s legal efforts to invalidate the election results.Ī person familiar with the work of the House committee investigating the Jan. Olson to contact the acting attorney general directly about having the Justice Department lend its credibility to Mr. At one point, it refers to the president urging Mr. Trump continued to seek extreme legal advice that ran counter to the recommendations of the Justice Department and the counsel’s office.Īnd, the memo indicates that Mr. Powell special counsel to investigate wild and groundless claims of voter fraud, even as White House lawyers fought back.īut the document suggests that, even after his aides had won that skirmish in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump to seize voting machines and appoint Ms. Flynn, the former national security adviser, pushed for Mr. In that meeting, the lawyer Sidney Powell and Michael T.

His 2020 memo was written 10 days after one of the most dramatic meetings ever held in the Trump White House, during which three of the president’s White House advisers vied - at one point almost physically - with outside actors to influence Mr. “The media will call this martial law,” he wrote, adding that “that is ‘fake news.’”Īccording to his website, which displays a photograph of him shaking hands with President Richard M. Olson wrote in his memo, obtained by The New York Times, which he marked “privileged and confidential” and sent to the president. “Our little band of lawyers is working on a memorandum that explains exactly what you can do,” Mr. Olson, titled “Preserving Constitutional Order,” describing their discussions. The plan included tampering with the Justice Department and firing the acting attorney general, according to the Dec. Olson later conceded some of them could be regarded as tantamount to declaring “martial law” and could even invite comparisons with Watergate. Olson, was promoting several extreme ideas to the president. Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., on the phone with a little-known conservative lawyer who was encouraging his attempts to overturn the election, according to a memo the lawyer later wrote documenting the call. Around 5 in the afternoon on Christmas Day in 2020, as many Americans were celebrating with family, President Donald J.

Acting attorney general trumps efforts subvert