Jan. 6 Panel Says It Has New Evidence of Trump’s Pressure on Justice Dept. - The New York Times

Thursday will feature the former acting attorney general and other top officials at the department during the Trump era as witnesses.

Trump tried to manipulate the Justice Department to help him cling to power after he lost the 2020 election, aides said on Wednesday.

on Thursday, the panel plans to hear testimony from three former top Justice Department officials who are expected to lay out the ways in which Mr.

Trump tried to misuse the attorney general’s office to overturn his defeat, an extraordinary instance of a president interfering with the nation’s law enforcement apparatus for his own personal ends.

Trump unsuccessfully pushed department officials to falsely declare that there was widespread fraud in the election, file lawsuits to benefit his campaign and appoint a conspiracy theorist as a special counsel to investigate the election.

It will also trace his failed efforts to send false letters to state officials to subvert the election results and, finally, to replace the acting attorney general, who refused to go along with his plans.

Trump ultimately backed off after agency officials threatened mass resignations, but the committee is presenting his actions as a critical strand in a multilayered effort by the former president to subvert the election.

Engel, the former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.

Trump attempted to intervene in the workings of the Justice Department to keep himself in office has been well documented by both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Jan.

Time and again, department officials told Mr.

Trump after the election that his claims of widespread fraud were false, and prompted him to back down from some of his most extreme propositions.

“It is not the role of the Department of Justice to provide legislative officials with legal advice on the scope of their duties.”.

Trump then spoke up and told the Justice Department officials, who repeatedly told him his claims of widespread fraud were false, that they were not to speak to Mr.

Trump said, according to Mr.

The Justice Department officials were also witnesses to interactions between Pat A.