The Department of Justice’s Inspector General, Michael E. Horowitz, announced on Monday that the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is initiating “an investigation into whether any former DOJ official or current officer was involved in an attempt undue to cause the DOJ to seek to alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential elections, ”according to a statement.
The Office of the Inspector General said they were making this statement, in accordance with DOJ policy, “to reassure the public that an appropriate agency is investigating the allegations”.
The investigation comes in the wake of last week’s reports from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal that former President Donald Trump tried to use his Department of Justice to challenge the election results, an effort that included the possibility of Trump dismissing then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen.
The Times said in a report published on Friday that Jeffrey Clark, a DOJ lawyer, almost convinced Trump earlier this month to remove Rosen and use the department to undo Georgia’s election results.
Clark – who appealed the former president’s false allegations of electoral fraud – met with Trump in early January and told Rosen after the meeting that the then president would replace him with Clark. Clark would then move to prevent Congress from certifying the election results in favor of Biden, according to the newspaper.
Rosen demanded to hear the news directly from Trump, the Times said, and set up a meeting on the night of January 3 – the same day that Trump called Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, when Trump lobbied the state official to find enough votes for him to win Georgia, they surfaced.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer asked Horowitz to start an investigation on Saturday, writing in a tweet that it was “inconceivable that a Trump Justice Department leader would conspire to subvert the will of the people.”