Emails show top FBI and DOJ officials grappling with Trump's election lies: 'This is the reality of working here these days'

• New emails show how the DOJ and FBI were in turmoil amid Trump's election-fraud claims.
• One FBI official was concerned that engaging with Trump's demands was "putting us in a bad spot."
• A senior DOJ official agreed, saying, "Unfortunately, this is the reality of working here these days."

Top Department of Justice officials tensely debated how to handle then President Donald Trump's baseless claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him during his last weeks in office, emails obtained by Politico show.

In one email on December 7, the head of the DOJ's Public Integrity Section (PIN) cautioned against the FBI investigating one such claim in which Trump said a video showed Georgia election workers committing fraud.

"[Secretary of State] investigators have already conducted recorded interviews of the individuals at issue and such interviews reportedly revealed nothing to suggest nefarious activity with regard to the integrity of the election," Corey Amundson, the head of PIN, wrote, according to Politico. "The FBI 're-interviewing' those individuals at this point and under the current circumstances risks great damage to the Department's reputation, including the possible appearance of being motivated by partisan concerns."

The FBI doesn't typically investigate election and voter fraud claims, but in a highly unusual move, then Attorney General Bill Barr issued a memo on November 9 authorizing federal prosecutors across the country to investigate allegations of fraud connected to the election.

FBI deputy director David Bowdich also expressed concerns with Barr's direction, writing in an email to deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, "This is putting us in a bad spot."

"I feel like we are operating under an antiquated thought process here," the email said, according to Politico. "Everyone understood that before the election we should not do these types of inquiries, but we are in a place right now in this election cycle in which these types of allegations are important to vet out, particularly when many in the country are still questioning the results."

Donoghue agreed, replying, "It is antiquated indeed." But he said the final call was Barr's, writing that "the decision has been made" and "we all have a chain of command for a reason."

"Sorry that you and your team have been dragged into this again," Donoghue added. "Unfortunately, this is the reality of working here these days."

The emails shed more light on the turmoil that rocked the nation's top law enforcement agency in the final months of Trump's presidency.

Things took another turn in mid-December, when Trump announced that Barr would be resigning. The attorney general had been on the chopping block for months, and the final straw came when he told reporters that, contrary to Trump's claims, the DOJ had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the election.

Barr was replaced by acting attorney general Jeff Rosen, who shared Donoghue's qualms with Trump's repeated demands that the DOJ announce the election was rigged and interfere with the certification in battleground states that Joe Biden won.

Both Rosen and Donoghue are integral witnesses to Congress' investigation into Trump's myriad efforts to subvert the election. In addition to having firsthand knowledge of many of those efforts, both men also contemporaneously documented their experiences in emails.

Rosen testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee for hours this month, and he also spoke to the DOJ's inspector general about his encounters with Trump and his loyalists within the DOJ, including the former acting head of the civil division, Jeffrey Clark.

Among other things, Rosen told lawmakers that Trump asked him about a far-fetched and dubious legal strategy to overturn Biden's victory, which Rosen shot down.

He also testified about several encounters he had with Clark, including one in which Clark admitted to diverging from DOJ norms and speaking privately with Trump about the election results, and pledging that he wouldn't do so again.