To advance its legislative agenda, the Senate Committee on the Judiciary conducts regular oversight
Regular agency oversight hearings were the norm under the Obama Administration, a tradition which Senator Durbin restored. In 2021, Durbin held the Committee’s first Department of Justice (DOJ) oversight hearing since 2017 and the first Department of Homeland Security (DHS) oversight hearing since 2018 —the lone times the Committee held oversight hearings on these two critical agencies during the Trump Administration.
117th Congress Oversight Hearings & Initiatives
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Chris Wray testified in a hearing on domestic terrorism and the January 6 insurrection—the Committee’s first FBI oversight hearing since 2019 and the first testimony Wray had given since the January 6 attack.
- Durbin called for a new, reform-minded Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Director to replace former Director Michael Carvajal in November 2021, following an Associated Press report that found that BOP is a “hotbed of abuse, graft and corruption, and has turned a blind eye to employees accused of misconduct.” Carvajal’s resignation was announced less than two months later. Durbin held a BOP oversight hearing in September 2022 with the new Director, Colette Peters, which was her first testimony before Congress since taking over at the Bureau.
- Following the deadly January 6, 2021, attack on our Capitol, stemming from former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, in October 2021, Durbin and the Committee released new testimony and a staff report entitled “Subverting Justice: How the Former President and his Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election.” The report and testimony revealed that our nation was only a half-step away from a full blown constitutional crisis as President Trump and his loyalists threatened a wholesale takeover of DOJ. The report also revealed how former DOJ Acting Civil Division Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark became Trump’s Big Lie Lawyer, attempting to pressure his colleagues in DOJ to overturn of the 2020 election.
- After a DOJ Inspector General report documented the FBI’s failure to investigate reports that Larry Nassar was assaulting young athletes, which enabled the continued abuse of dozens of additional victims, Chair Durbin held a hearing on the FBI’s dereliction of duty, with testimony from Olympic and world champion gymnasts, FBI Director Wray, and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Shortly after this hearing, the Justice Department announced an internal review of its earlier decision to decline prosecution of the FBI agents who committed misconduct in the Nassar case.
featured investigation
Subverting Justice: How the Former President and his Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election
In October 2021, following an eight-month investigation, Chair Durbin released new testimony and an interim staff report, “Subverting Justice: How the Former President and his Allies Pressured DOJ to Overturn the 2020 Election.” The report and testimony revealed that we were only a half-step away from a full blown constitutional crisis as then-President Trump and his loyalists threatened a wholesale takeover of the Justice Department. The report shed new light on Trump’s relentless efforts to coopt DOJ into overturning the 2020 election—the first comprehensive accounting of those efforts.
Key takeaways from the Committee’s investigation include:
- Previously-unreleased transcripts of the Committee’s closed-door interviews with three key former senior DOJ officials: former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former U.S. Attorney BJay Pak. These witnesses cooperated with the Committee, and although their testimony was not under oath, they were obligated by 18 U.S.C. § 1001 to tell the truth.
- New details of Donald Trump’s relentless, direct pressure on DOJ’s leadership. This includes at least nine calls and meetings with Rosen and/or Donoghue starting the day former Attorney General Bill Barr announced his resignation and continuing almost until the January 6 insurrection—including near-daily outreach once Barr left DOJ on December 23.
- New details of then-Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division Jeffrey Clark’s misconduct, including his attempt to induce Rosen into helping Trump’s election subversion scheme by telling Rosen he would decline Trump’s offer to install him in Rosen’s place if Rosen agreed to aid that scheme.
- New details around Trump forcing the resignation of U.S. Attorney Pak because he believed Pak was not doing enough to support his false claims of election fraud in Georgia—and then went outside the line of succession to appoint Bobby Christine as Acting U.S. Attorney because he believed Christine would “do something” about his election fraud claims.
- New details of how, at Barr’s direction, DOJ deviated from decades-long practice meant to avoid inserting DOJ itself as an issue in the election—and instead aggressively pursued false claims of election fraud before votes were certified.
- Confirmation that Mark Meadows asked Rosen to initiate election fraud investigations on multiple occasions, violating longstanding restrictions on White House intervention in DOJ law enforcement matters—and new details about these requests, including that Meadows asked Rosen to meet with Trump’s outside lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
In January 2021, following a report from The New York Times that detailed a plot between Trump and Clark to use DOJ to further Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election, Durbin led the Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in a letter to then-Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson calling on him to preserve and produce all relevant materials in the DOJ’s possession, custody, or control related to this plot. This kicked off the Committee’s eight-month investigation. The Committee continues to seek records requested from the National Archives and Records Administration, which have not yet been supplied, and continues to pursue interviews with relevant individuals as part of this ongoing investigation.
A link to the transcripts of the Committee’s closed-door interviews with former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former U.S. Attorney BJay Pak is available here.
