Trump directs DOJ leadership to 'just say the election was corrupt'

On December 27, 2020, President Trump called acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and acting Deputy AG Richard Donoghue, demanding they publicly declare the election was corrupt and telling them to "just say the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen." Donoghue took contemporaneous notes of the call that the Senate Judiciary Committee later obtained. Both Rosen and Donoghue refused, and the conversation became central to Special Counsel Smith's findings on Trump's effort to weaponize DOJ against the election result.