WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today released the following statement regarding former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report on then-President Trump’s efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election and the certification of the Electoral College vote held on January 6, 2021:
“The former Special Counsel’s report shows the American people just how close we came to a constitutional crisis by detailing President Trump’s ‘criminal efforts to retain power’ and subvert the 2020 election. In the history of wrongdoing, both alleged and proven, few—if any—crimes by a public official have reached this level of gravity.
“Moving forward, each generation of Americans has a responsibility to work to preserve our republic.”
In October 2021, following an eight-month investigation, the Senate Judiciary 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 we were only a half-step away from a full-blown constitutional crisis as then-President Donald Trump and his loyalists threatened a wholesale takeover of the Department of Justice (DOJ) following the 2020 election. The report also revealed how former Acting Civil Division Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark became Trump’s Big Lie Lawyer, pressuring his colleagues in DOJ to force an overturn of the 2020 election.
Yesterday, Durbin led all Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats in a letter urging Attorney General Merrick Garland to preserve all existing and future materials related to former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Donald Trump and investigations conducted by Congress.
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