Jan. 6 committee hearing on Trump’s DOJ pressure

We discuss Thursday's Jan. 6 hearing about former President Trump's efforts to use the DOJ to help him overturn the election results.

Air Date: June 24, 2022 10:00 am

Steven Engel, former Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, from left, Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Attorney General, and Richard Donoghue, former acting Deputy Attorney General, are sworn in to testify as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol continues to reveal its findings of a year-long investigation, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2022. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Former President Trump’s efforts to force the Department of Justice to help him overturn the election results were laid out in the fifth Jan. 6 committee hearing on Thursday. Former top DOJ officials testified about the pressure Trump put on them to refute the 2020 election results using the authority of the Justice Department. When they refused, Trump planned to oust acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with little-known Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who was willing to support Trump’s false election claims.

Yesterday Jeffrey Clark’s home was raided by federal law enforcement officials. This hour we talk about the yesterdays hearing and what we learned about Trump’s efforts to use the DOJ to reverse the results of the election. We’ll talk about the raid on Clark and some recent subpoenas issued by the DOJ and what it tells us about their own Jan. 6 criminal investigation.

Guests

Devlin Barrett, national security reporter for the Washington Post. @Devlinbarrett

Claire Finkelstein, professor of law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and founder and director of the school’s Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law. @COFinkelstein

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