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<ul class="summary-list"><li>New emails show that <keyword id="796638" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mark-Meadows">Mark Meadows</keyword>, <keyword id="6354484" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Donald-Trump">Donald Trump</keyword>'s chief of staff, was involved in the bid to overturn the election. </li><li>The emails show Meadows pressured the Justice Department to investigate election fraud <keyword id="1379614" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="conspiracy-theories">conspiracy theories</keyword>. </li><li>It's considered highly inappropriate for White House officials to try to get the DoJ involved in political cases. </li></ul>Mark Meadows, who served as chief of staff in Donald Trump's White House, pressed the Justice Department to investigate several conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, according to reports. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/us/politics/mark-meadows-justice-department-election.html?referringSource=articleShare">The New York Times</a> first reported Saturday that in emails between December and January to then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, Meadows pressed him to investigate the baseless theories that the presidential election was stolen from Trump due to mass fraud or foreign meddling. Among the claims, Meadows pushed was the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-debunking-italy-gate-idUSKBN29K2N8">bizarre 'Italygate' conspiracy theory.</a> Its supporters invented a narrative that allies of Joe Biden in Italy could flip the result of the election using military satellites. In other emails, Meadows discussed unsubstantiated claims of mass fraud in New Mexico and Georgia, pushed by Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. The report was later confirmed <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/05/politics/mark-meadows-doj-2020-election-fraud/index.html">by CNN</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/mark-meadows-jeffrey-rosen-election-fraud/2021/06/05/ee4f0e34-c635-11eb-8c18-fd53a628b992_story.html">The Washington Post. </a>The emails were recovered as part of a Senate Judiciary Committee probe into whether the Justice Department had been involved in Trump's attempt to overturn the election result. Meadows' campaign to get the Justice Department to investigate the conspiracy theories is highly controversial as White House officials should not seek Justice Department investigations for political purposes. According to the Times, the emails do not show that Rosen opened investigations into any conspiracy theories. Another email showed Rosen refused to broker a meeting between the FBI and a man who'd promoted the <keyword id="11391818" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="italygate">Italygate</keyword> conspiracy theory in online videos. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told CNN that the "new evidence underscores the depths of the White House's efforts to co-opt the department and influence the electoral vote certification. This is a fire alarm fire for our democracy."Insider has contacted Meadows for comment on the reports. Trump and his allies' election fraud conspiracy theories fuelled the January 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.

Trump's chief of staff pressed the Justice Department to investigate the bizarre conspiracy theory that people in Italy meddled in the 2020 election using military satellites

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="11917799" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="mark-meadows" source="Orion">Mark Meadows</keyword> pushed a conspiracy theory that China used thermostats to hack into voting machines. </li><li>A new CNN report reveals more details about Meadows' efforts to subvert the <keyword id="11907757" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="2020-election" source="Orion">2020 election</keyword>. </li></ul>Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows contacted high-ranking national security officials about a conspiracy theory that China hacked into voting machines with thermostats as part of his efforts to subvert the 2020 election results, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/politics/mark-meadows-election-fraud-liaison/index.html">CNN reports. </a>Meadows used his powerful position in the Trump administration <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/77681/mark-meadows-timeline-the-chief-of-staff-and-schemes-to-overturn-2020-election/">to further the former president's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss</a>, including pressuring federal agencies to investigate or back up unfounded conspiracy theories, congressional investigations have shown. CNN reported that Meadows reached out to officials at the FBI, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, to ask them to look into the groundless Chinese thermostat hacking theory.That conspiracy theory and others were also being espoused by former President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, attorney Sidney Powell, and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-allies-pressed-defense-department-overturn-election-book/story?id=81182008">two of the most high-profile purveyors</a> of outlandish conspiracy theories about hacking and fraud in the 2020 elections. "Meadows was perpetually enabling this insane stuff and was too scared to stand up to Trump," a source who was in several meetings with Meadows with the White House and other agencies <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/02/politics/mark-meadows-election-fraud-liaison/index.html">told CNN. </a>The new reporting from CNN adds on to revelations from <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/doj-officials-mark-meadows-italy-conspiracy-theory-pure-insanity-emails-2021-6">troves of emails between Meadows and top officials at the Department of Justice</a> obtained by the <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/COR-SelectedDOJDocuments-2021-6-15-FINAL.pdf">House Oversight Committee</a> and Senate Judiciary Committee and released during summer 2021.They show that Meadows, among other things, sent Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen a link to a YouTube video from a man named Brad Johnson <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-chief-of-staff-pressed-justice-dept-to-probe-conspiracy-theories-2021-6">claiming that Italy had also hacked into voting machines with military satellites</a> to steal the election from Trump, a conspiracy theory known as "ItalyGate." Rosen forwarded the email to a deputy, Richard Donoghue, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/doj-officials-mark-meadows-italy-conspiracy-theory-pure-insanity-emails-2021-6">who replied</a>: "Pure insanity." "I responded that Johnson could call or walk into FBI's Washington Field Office with any evidence he purports to have," Rosen later wrote to Donoghue "On a follow up call, I learned that Johnson is working with Rudy Giuliani, who regarded my comments as 'an insult.' Asked if I would reconsider, I flatly refused, said I would not be giving any special treatment to Giuliani or any of his 'witnesses,' and re-affirmed yet again that I will not talk to Giuliani about any of this."Former DOJ official <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/06/politics/doj-clark-trump-election/index.html">Jeffrey Clark</a> also pushed conspiracy theories among senior officials, documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee show. In a December 28 email, Clark told Rosen and Donoghue: "I would like to have your authorization to get a classified briefing tomorrow from ODNI led by DNI Radcliffe on foreign election interference issues," adding, "Hackers have evidence (in the public domain) that a Dominion machine accessed the Internet through a smart thermostat with a net connection trail leading back to China. ODNI may have additional classified evidence."Meadows also contributed to Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. He pressed DOJ officials to investigate various purported election irregularities, <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/sites/democrats.oversight.house.gov/files/documents/COR-SelectedDOJDocuments-2021-6-15-FINAL.pdf">the emails show</a>, and participated <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-georgia-brad-raffensperger-election-influencing-transcript-republicans-2021-01">in the infamous January 2, 2021 phone call</a> where Trump pressured Georgia's chief election official and his staff to "find" him the 11,780 votes necessary for him to overcome his election loss in the state. Meadows is set to voluntarily cooperate with the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, Committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-meadows-is-cooperating-with-the-jan-6-house-investigation-2021-11">announced on Tuesday</a>, and is expected to sit for a deposition in the next week. The former chief of staff discusses his actions and conversations with Trump on January 6 — a key focus of the committee — in his forthcoming book "The Chief's Chief." Meadows voluntarily writing about the events in his book undercuts his ability to claim that such conversations and records <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mark-meadows-book-undermines-withholding-info-jan-6-investigators-schiff-2021-12">are protected from the committee's scrutiny by executive privilege. </a>"It's...very possible that by discussing the events of Jan. 6 in his book, if he does that, he's waiving any claim of privilege. So, it'd be very difficult for him to maintain 'I can't speak about events to you, but I can speak about them in my book,'" Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the Select Committee, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/02/meadows-book-executive-privilege-jan-6-523687">told Politico. </a>In the memoir, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/02/trump-capitol-attack-mark-meadows-memoir-book">obtained by the Guardian</a>, Meadows <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meadows-downplays-jan-6-violence-blames-handful-of-fanatics-book-2021-12">doubles down on the lie that widespread voter fraud</a> led to the 2020 election being stolen from Trump, characterizing him as "in mourning for the second term he had been unfairly denied." He also downplays the violence caused by the rioters, who attacked and injured an estimated 1,000 law enforcement officers, as committed by "a handful of fanatics."

Mark Meadows contacted US national security officials about a conspiracy theory that China was using thermostats to hack into voting machines, report says

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="5304639" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="john-demers">John Demers</keyword>, the <keyword id="203774" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="DOJ">DOJ</keyword>'s top national security official, considered resigning amid Trump's pressure to overturn the election.</li><li>But Demers decided to stay on to oversee the department's day-to-day business.</li><li>He also told The Wall Street Journal he was "relieved" and "pleased" that the acting AG resisted Trump's pressure to overturn the election results.</li></ul>John Demers, the Justice Department official who oversees the national security division, seriously considered resigning in January when then-President Donald Trump ramped up pressure on the department to overturn the results of the <keyword id="7600569" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="2020-election">2020 election</keyword>."I didn't know what was going to happen, I thought that there was a real chance that would be my last day in the department," Demers <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-election-pressure-caused-senior-justice-official-to-weigh-resigning-11624305817?mod=hp_listb_pos1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told The Wall Street Journal</a> in an interview.Demers will leave the department at the end of June. His departure was pre-planned but comes amid <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> that the DOJ secretly seized the records of Democratic lawmakers and some journalists as part of aggressive leak investigations during the special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.Demers told The Journal that he thought about resigning in early January when Trump was threatening to fire the acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, for not doing more to overturn the election results. But Demers stayed on because he didn't know who would oversee the agency's day-to-day business if he resigned along with other senior officials.He went on to say that he was "relieved" and "pleased" that Rosen pushed back on Trump's repeated demands to overturn the election.Indeed, the House Oversight Committee released a trove of emails last week that illustrated how alarmed Rosen and other top DOJ officials were by the Trump administration's efforts.At one point, Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, repeatedly asked DOJ officials to investigate claims of purported voter and election fraud.In a January 1 email to Rosen, Meadows asked the department to look into a YouTube video in which a retired CIA intelligence officer named Brad Johnson made broad, unverified claims that the US embassy in Rome somehow switched votes from Trump to Biden during the election. The baseless conspiracy theory, dubbed "<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/08/fact-check-italygate-claims-electoral-fraud-rome-baseless/6567335002/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ItalyGate</a>," caught fire in right-wing circles in the days and weeks after the election, and Johnson was one of its key promoters.Rosen forwarded Meadows' email to then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, to which Donoghue replied, "Pure insanity."Rosen responded to Donoghue saying, "Yes."He went on to say that after Meadows emailed him the YouTube video, he was asked to have the FBI meet with Johnson."I responded that Johnson could call or walk into FBI's Washington Field Office with any evidence he purports to have," Rosen wrote in the email, which appears to be a contemporaneous memo, a type of document that law enforcement and intelligence officials use to detail their knowledge of significant or legally dubious interactions."On a follow up call, I learned that Johnson is working with Rudy Giuliani, who regarded my comments as 'an insult,'" Rosen continued. "Asked if I would reconsider, I flatly refused, said I would not be giving any special treatment to Giuliani or any of his 'witnesses,' and re-affirmed yet again that I will not talk to Giuliani about any of this."In another January 1 email, Meadows asked Rosen to have the acting assistant attorney general, Jeff Clark, to investigate "signature match anomalies" in Fulton County, Georgia."Can you get Jeff Clark to engage on this issue immediately to determine if there is any truth to this allegation," Meadows wrote.Rosen also forwarded that email to Donoghue and wrote, "Can you believe this? I am not going to respond to message below."

The DOJ's top national security official seriously considered resigning amid Trump's pressure to overturn the election

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Senior <keyword id="203774" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="DOJ">DOJ</keyword> officials were deeply alarmed by top Trump officials' fixation on the election results.</li><li>Trump chief of staff <keyword id="796638" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mark-Meadows">Mark Meadows</keyword> repeatedly asked DOJ to investigate bogus conspiracy theories.</li><li>One request was so concerning the acting AG documented it and the deputy AG called it "pure insanity."</li></ul>Senior officials at the Justice Department expressed deep frustration and alarm with top Trump officials' fixation on the election results in the final days of Donald Trump's presidency. One such interaction left the acting attorney general so shaken that he decided to contemporaneously document the episode.According to a trove of emails released by the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, repeatedly asked Justice Department officials to investigate claims of purported voter and election fraud.In a January 1 email to then-acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, Meadows asked the department to look into a YouTube video in which a retired CIA intelligence officer named Brad Johnson made broad, unverified claims that the US embassy in Rome somehow switched votes from Trump to Biden during the election. The baseless conspiracy theory, dubbed "<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/01/08/fact-check-italygate-claims-electoral-fraud-rome-baseless/6567335002/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ItalyGate</a>," caught fire in right-wing circles in the days and weeks after the election, and Johnson was one of its key promoters.Rosen forwarded Meadows' email to then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, to which Donoghue replied, "Pure insanity."Rosen responded to Donoghue saying, "Yes."He went on to say that after Meadows emailed him the YouTube video, he was asked to have the FBI meet with Johnson."I responded that Johnson could call or walk into FBI's Washington Field Office with any evidence he purports to have," Rosen wrote in the email, which appears to be a contemporaneous memo, a type of document that law enforcement and intelligence officials use to detail their knowledge of significant or legally dubious interactions."On a follow up call, I learned that Johnson is working with Rudy Giuliani, who regarded my comments as 'an insult,'" Rosen continued. "Asked if I would reconsider, I flatly refused, said I would not be giving any special treatment to Giuliani or any of his 'witnesses,' and re-affirmed yet again that I will not talk to Giuliani about any of this."Giuliani was Trump's personal defense attorney at the time, and he was also under active investigation by the Justice Department over whether he violated foreign lobbying laws connected to his efforts to secure Trump's reelection.In another January 1 email, Meadows asked Rosen to have the acting assistant attorney general, Jeff Clark, to investigate "signature match anomalies" in Fulton County, Georgia."Can you get Jeff Clark to engage on this issue immediately to determine if there is any truth to this allegation," Meadows wrote.Rosen also forwarded that email to Donoghue and wrote, "Can you believe this? I am not going to respond to message below."The emails published by the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday depict the most brazen effort yet by the Trump administration and top officials in the White House to reverse Trump's election defeat. They also illustrate the extent to which repeated requests for investigations by Meadows and others in Trump's orbit concerned Justice Department officials.Trump, for his part, continues to claim that he was the rightful winner of the <keyword id="7600569" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="2020-election">2020 election</keyword> and that the race was "rigged" and stolen from him.In fact, nonpartisan election and cybersecurity experts have said that the past election was the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/2020-election-administration-was-successful-not-a-disaster-2020-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">safest and most secure</a> in US history. But that hasn't stopped Republican state legislatures across the country from passing <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/06/14-gop-controlled-states-have-passed-laws-to-impede-free-elections/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a slew of laws</a> that would not only make it more difficult for voters to cast ballots, but also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/congress-likely-wont-take-action-on-gop-election-subversion-2021-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">make it easier</a> for partisan forces to control and potentially overturn states' election results.

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Trump's chief of staff pressed the Justice Department to investigate the bizarre conspiracy theory that people in Italy meddled in the 2020 election using military satellites

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Mark Meadows contacted US national security officials about a conspiracy theory that China was using thermostats to hack into voting machines, report says

Grace Panetta

The DOJ's top national security official seriously considered resigning amid Trump's pressure to overturn the election

Sonam Sheth

'Can you believe this?': Emails show how alarmed DOJ leaders were by Trump officials' obsession with overturning the election

Sonam Sheth

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