The Justice Department is conducting an active investigation into whether former President Donald Trump attempted to directly interfere with the results of the 2020 election, according to several anonymous sources.
As The Washington Post reports, key witnesses for the investigation, which include two top aides to former Vice President Mike Pence, are being questioned about conversations, meetings and other communications centering around Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election — specifically whether or not the former president gave explicit instructions to his lawyers or other individuals to disrupt the electoral college process by using phony electors. However, as The New York Times notes, this new line of witness questioning does not immediately suggest the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation against the ex-president.
The news comes after last week’s primetime Jan. 6 committee hearing shared a minute-by-minute account of Trump’s actions — or, rather, lack thereof — during the Capitol siege, revealing the former president resisted numerous and repeated requests from a slew of White House officials to condemn the violence.
Other anonymous sources also told the Post that investigators have had access to phone records from several top Trump White House officials, including former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, since April. Meadows’ former aide Cassidy Hutchinson served as a key witness for the House committee, delivering a damning testimony detailing the Trump administration’s repeated failures to prevent and ultimately quell the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Still, revelation marks yet another setback for the embattled former president — who, in recent days, has railed against the ongoing Jan. 6 investigation, labeling it an act of “persecution” against his crumbling political legacy.
“Where does it stop? Where does it end?” Trump said of the committee’s findings during a rally in Arizona last weekend. “Never forget: Everything this corrupt establishment is doing to me is all about preserving their power and control over the American people, for whatever reason. They want to damage me in any form so I can no longer represent you.”
Source: RollingStone
