Former acting AG Rosen testifies for seven hours before Senate panel about Trump's post-election efforts to overturn election
- Ex-Acting AG Jeffrey Rosen said Donald Trump mounted a massive pressure campaign for the DOJ to overturn his election loss in his final days in office
- Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin revealed the new information on Sunday
- He said Rosen testified on Saturday for seven hours behind closed-doors
- 'It was real. Very real. And it was very specific. The former president is not subtle when he wants something,' Durbin said of the pressure campaign
- He also said 'history is going to very kind to Mr. Rosen when this is all over'
Dick Durbin revealed Sunday that Trump's acting Justice Department head said the former president used his final months in office to pressure the office to overturn his election defeat.
'It was real. Very real. And it was very specific,' Senator Durbin told CNN's State of the Union regarding the duress. 'The former president is not subtle when he wants something.'
Former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen provided the new information to lawmakers during a seven-hour closed-door Judiciary Committee hearing on Saturday.
Durbin, who chairs the committee, said Rosen provided 'invaluable' testimony.
According to the Democratic senator, Rosen testified that Trump directly pressured him to falsely assert that continuing election fraud investigations cast doubt on President Joe Biden's victory.
Durbin praised Rosen, a conservative lawyer, for his voluntary cooperation with the committee's ongoing investigation into Trump's actions after the election.
'He told us a lot in seven hours of testimony, and I might quickly add, this was done on a bipartisan basis.'
'Mr. Rosen appeared voluntarily, which says a lot – and cooperated with us,' Durbin lauded.
'I thought he was very open and there's a lot there, an awful lot there,' he added.
'What was going on in the Department of Justice was frightening from a constitutional point of view,' Durbin said, adding that was evident by the fact that former Attorney General Bill Barr prematurely vacated his office after concluding there were no irregularities in the 2020 election.
Trump-era Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said Donald Trump mounted a massive pressure campaign for the DOJ to overturn his election loss
Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin revealed the new information in a Sunday interview with CNN (pictured), claiming it came out during Rosen's seven hours of closed-door testimony on Saturday
According to the Democratic Illinois senator, Rosen testified that Trump directly pressured him to falsely assert that continuing election fraud investigations cast doubt on President Joe Biden's victory.
'I have to say history is going to very kind to Mr. Rosen when this is all over. When he was initially appointed, I didn't think that was the case. I was wrong,' Durbin said, adding: 'It's a good thing for America we had someone like Rosen in that position.'
Rosen's testimony came a week after a House of Representatives committee released Justice Department documents showing Trump had urged top officials last year to falsely claim his election defeat was 'corrupt.'
'Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,' Trump told Rosen, referring to Republicans, in a Dec. 27 phone call, according to handwritten notes taken by a Rosen aide.
The notes showed Rosen told Trump the department could not and would not 'change the outcome of the election.'
Durbin said in the CNN interview that his committee also wants testimony from former Attorney General Bill Barr, who Rosen replaced during the final weeks of Trump's presidency.
Barr stepped down in December, shortly after the Electoral College confirmed Trump's loss to Biden.
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Trump's ex-Attorney General Bill Barr stepped down shortly before the end of the former president's term after his Justice Department probe found no irregularities in the 2020 election
Barr had angered Trump by not supporting his false claims that the Nov. 3 election result had been tainted by widespread fraud. Multiple courts, state election officials and members of Trump's administration rejected those claims as unfounded.
Durbin said he also wants to hear from former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, who reportedly plotted with Trump to try to oust Rosen so he could take over the Justice Department.
'I would like to bring in Jeffrey Clark, for example,' Durbin said. 'He was the heir apparent in Trump's mind if Rosen was not going to do his bidding. And Rosen stood fast and didn't.'
When asked if Trump engaged in an attempted coup, Durbin said: 'It was leading up to that process.'
Durbin declined to say whether Trump should face criminal charges for his efforts to subvert the election, saying it was too early in the investigation to answer that question.
