Wall Street Journal: White House pressured Georgia’s federal prosecutor to resign

Wall Street Journal: White House pressured Georgia’s federal prosecutor to resign

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The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported on Saturday that a senior Justice Department official called Trump-appointed federal prosecutor Byung J. Pak at the request of the White House. The official told Pak that he needed to resign because he was not investigating the allegations of Trump’s liking, the Journal reported.

The day before Georgians went to the polls, Pak abruptly presented his resignation, citing “unforeseen circumstances” as a reason for leaving in an email to his colleagues.
The revelation marks yet another Trump effort to try to pressure a Georgia government official to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state. CNN reported early Saturday that the president in December asked the chief investigator in the office of the Georgia secretary of state to “find fraud” in the 2020 presidential election, telling the individual that he would be a “national hero” of according to a source of knowledge of the call.

As CNN previously reported, there were no credible allegations of any voting problems that would have impacted the election, as claimed by dozens of judges, governors, election officials, the Electoral College, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the US Supreme Court.

Barry Paschale, the public relations officer for the Southern Georgia District, confirmed to CNN on Saturday that Bobby Christine was appointed US Attorney for the Northern Georgia District.

According to the Journal, Christine, a Trump nominee, took on these roles in addition to her role in the Southern District, rather than No. 2 at Pak’s office taking on the interim role, as is usually the case.

Paschale declined to comment on CNN in addition to confirming Christine’s nomination.

Congress formally certified Biden’s victory earlier this week after a US Capitol rebellion. After the violent attack on the capital, Trump said in a video that “a new administration will open on January 20”.

But in a call in early December, first reported by the Post, Trump tried to convince Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp to get state lawmakers to overturn Biden’s victory in the state.

And in a January 2 call obtained by CNN and reported for the first time by The Washington Post, Trump asked Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” votes to overturn the election results.

In excerpts of that impressive hour-long phone call, Trump criticized his Republican colleague for refusing to falsely say he won the election in Georgia and repeatedly made unfounded allegations of electoral fraud.

Raffensperger dismissed Trump’s claims, responding in part: “We believe we have an accurate election.”

A week earlier, Trump had telephoned the chief election investigator for the state of Peach, pressing the individual to “find the fraud”.

CNN’s Jason Hoffman, Evan Perez, Devan Cole, Jason Morris and Chandelis Duster contributed to this report.

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