Former United States President Donald Trump's administration reportedly drafted a memo that called for the firing of staffers who did not believe in the Republican businessman's claims of election fraud.
The memo allegedly came a month after the former president lost the 2020 presidential election against Democrat Joe Biden. The news of the order came after a report released by the U.S. House Select Committee responsible for investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot and Trump's involvement.
Firing Election Fraud Deniers
The panel took the deposition of Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, which was released on Friday. There, investigators mentioned a memo drafted by White House staffers in December 2020 that ended with, "Anybody that thinks there wasn't fraud in the 2020 election should be fired."
The draft statement was never released but came weeks after former Attorney-General William Barr pushed back at Trump's unfounded claims of election fraud. The official publicly stated that there was no evidence of voter fraud that could have affected the results of the presidential race between Biden and Trump, as per People.
Barr resigned from the Trump administration after affirming that there was no election fraud but the former president continued his allegations. Trump's continued, unfounded, and increasingly incendiary claims about his election loss to Biden have been cited by many of the people who stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
The riots at the Capitol, which led to the deaths of at least five people, including one Capitol police officer, resulted in the bipartisan committee investigation. The panel has taken the depositions of dozens of former Trump officials.
According to CNN, however, there were notable names amid the committee's investigation that were found to be only the tip of the iceberg. The panel interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses behind closed doors, including several Trump aides who hardly ever could be found in the headlines.
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Donald Trump's Legal Challenges
The report of the committee, which came out on Thursday, highlights how investigators tracked down little-known insiders from the Trump campaign to the National Guard to the Republican National Committee. The individuals allegedly witnessed key moments and provided critical information to the panel's members.
An example of the outside of little-known individuals is the committee's mention of an unnamed White House staffer who told the former president that his supporters were rioting down at the Capitol. It was one of the first instances of Trump being informed directly of the situation that was unfolding at the Capitol.
With the panel revealing to the public its report and witness interview transcripts, the people are now seeing how these obscure figures played big roles in the inquiry. Some of the witnesses provided information that could be useful to the ongoing criminal probes by the Justice Department and state prosecutors in Georgia over Trump's election schemes.
The situation comes as Congress gave final passage on Friday to legislation changing the arcane law that governs the certification of a presidential contest. It is the most significant effort yet to prevent a repeat of Trump's violence-inflaming push to reverse his loss against Biden, the Associated Press reported.
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