Page:Introductory Material to the Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/12

 "What was generally discussed on that topic was whether the fraud, maladministration, abuse, or irregularities, if aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign, would that be outcome determinative. And I think everyone’s assessment in the room, at least amongst the staff, Marc Short, myself, and Greg Jacob, was that it was not sufficient to be outcome determinative."

In a meeting on November 23rd, Barr told President Trump that the Justice Department was doing its duty by investigating every fraud allegation “if it’s specific, credible, and could’ve affected the outcome,” but that “they’re just not meritorious. They’re not panning out”

Barr then told the Associated Press on December 1st that the Department had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” Next, he reiterated this point in private meetings with the President both that afternoon and on December 14th, as well as in his final press conference as Attorney General later that month. The Department of Homeland Security had reached a similar determination 2 weeks earlier: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

In addition, multiple other high ranking Justice Department personnel appointed by President Trump also informed him repeatedly that the allegations were false. As January 6th drew closer, Acting Attorney General Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Donoghue had calls with President Trump on almost a daily basis explaining in detail what the Department’s investigations showed. Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue told the Select Committee that he and Acting Attorney General Rosen tried “to put it in very clear terms to the President. And I said something to the effect of ‘Sir, we’ve done dozens of investigations, hundreds of interviews. The major allegations are not supported by the evidence developed. We’ve looked in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada. We’re doing our job.’” On December 31st, Donoghue recalls telling the President that “people keep telling you these things and they turn out not to be true.” And then on January 3rd, Donoghue reiterated this point with the President: "[A]s in previous conservations, we would say to him, you know, “We checked that out, and there’s nothing to it.”"

Acting Attorney General Rosen testified before the Select Committee that “the common element” of all of his communications with President Trump was President Trump urging the Department to find widespread fraud that did not actually exist. None of the Department’s investigations identified any genuine fraud sufficient to impact the election outcome: "During my tenure as the Acting Attorney General, which began on December 24 of [2020], the Department of Justice maintained the position, publicly announced by former Attorney General William Barr, that the Department had been presented with no evidence of widespread voter fraud in a scale sufficient to change the outcome of the 2020 election."

As President Trump was hearing from his campaign and his Justice Department that the allegations of widespread fraud were not supported by the evidence, his White House legal staff also reached the same conclusions, and agreed specifically with what Bill Barr told Trump. Both White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and White House Senior Advisor Eric Herschmann reinforced to President Trump that the Justice Department was doing its duty to investigate allegations of supposed voter fraud.