In the weeks following the 2020 election, President Trump exhausted all avenues to stop swing states from certifying Joe Biden’s wins, including a “pressure campaign” on the Justice Department to back election fraud claims, witnesses said Thursday at House Jan. 6 committee hearing.
“The president wanted the department to sow doubt in the legitimacy of the election to empower his followers and members of Congress to take action,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois, who is one of two Republicans on the nine-member panel, said. “If the department could just lend its credibility to the conspiracies, people would have the justification they needed to spread the big lie.