Trump Pressured Justice Department To Act Based On Baseless Election Fraud Claims
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2022
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
And a number of Republicans who supported Trump's efforts to subvert the Democratic process asked the president for pardons, according to the testimony of administration aides.
This episode: White House correspondent Scott Detrow, congressional reporter Claudia Grisales, and national justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. |
| 0:06.4 | It is now 6.09 Eastern on Thursday June 23rd. |
| 0:11.0 | I'm Scott Detrello, I cover the White House. |
| 0:12.6 | I'm Claudia Gidecelli, I cover Congress. |
| 0:14.6 | And I'm Carrie Johnson, National Justice Correspondent. |
| 0:17.2 | So every hearing so far, the House January 6th Committee has focused on a different aspect |
| 0:22.0 | of former President Trump's attempts to overturn the presidential election. |
| 0:26.1 | And today's hearing was all about the pressure that Trump put on the Justice Department. |
| 0:31.3 | And the handful of top DOJ officials who stood in Trump's way as he tried to get federal |
| 0:36.1 | law enforcement involved in keeping him in power. |
| 0:40.1 | Here is what Richard Donney, who one of those officials, says Trump told him. |
| 0:43.9 | That's not what I'm asking you to do. |
| 0:45.2 | What I'm just asking you to do is just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me |
| 0:48.3 | in the Republican Congressman. |
| 0:50.1 | Carrie, let's start with this. |
| 0:52.0 | We have talked so many times over the past five or so years about what the relationship |
| 0:57.6 | between the DOJ and the White House is supposed to be. |
| 1:01.1 | And I think it's important to start by reminding us what the usual divisions are and what |
| 1:06.4 | the usual firewalls are. |
| 1:08.0 | Well, the Justice Department is not supposed to do the president's personal political bidding. |
| 1:13.0 | For example, like helping him try to overturn the results of a legal election as it appears |
| 1:18.1 | to happen in 2020, and these senior Justice Department officials from the Trump administration |
... |
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