Page:Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/240



claims emerged in its place. Barr later complained that this dynamic forced him and others to play "whack-a-mole."

The United States Department of Justice, under Barr's leadership and then Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, was forced to knock down one lie after another. As discussed in Chapter 4, Barr took unprecedented steps to investigate the "avalanche" of lies. Claims of election fraud were referred to United States Attorney's offices and the FBI for investigation. Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue tracked dozens of investigations. None of them were found to have merit. The top officials in President Trump's Justice Department personally told the President that the claims he was promoting were false. But that did not matter to the President. As Barr told the Select Committee, President Trump never showed any "indication of interest in what the actual facts were."

For example, on December 27th, Rosen and Donoghue spent approximately two hours on the phone with President Trump. They debunked a litany of claims regarding the election, explaining that each had been investigated and found to be baseless. According to Donoghue, President Trump "had this arsenal of allegations that he wanted to rely on." Donoghue thought it was necessary to explain to the President "based on actual investigations, actual witness interviews, actual reviews of documents, that