The Wall Street Journal is adding to the reporting by the New York Times on Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election. The Journal is reporting of another plan proposed by Trump before he considered removing the Attorney General.
The first plan, according to the Journal, involved the Justice Department going to directly to the Supreme Court to invalidate President Biden’s victory. The Journal writes:
Senior department officials, including (acting Attorney General) Mr. Rosen, former Attorney General William Barr and former acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall refused to file the Supreme Court case, concluding that there was no basis to challenge the election outcome and that the federal government had no legal interest in whether Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden won the presidency, some of these people said. White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy, Patrick Philbin, also opposed Mr. Trump’s idea, which was promoted 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 said. “The pressure got really intense” after a lawsuit Texas filed in the Supreme Court against four states Mr. Biden won was dismissedon Dec. 11, the official said. An outside lawyer working for Mr. Trump drafted a brief the then-president wanted the Justice Department to file, people familiar with the matter said, but officials refused.
After his Supreme Court plan failed, he then considered replacing acting Attorney General Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ lawyer and Trump loyalist.
