The recent public January 6th hearing focused on evidence of and testimony on Donald Trump’s concerted campaign to pressure the US Department of Justice into fully investigating and subsequently backing up his unhinged, baseless claims regarding the 2020 presidential election and the alleged, now thoroughly debunked claims of widespread voter fraud that Trump. still to this day, asserts cost him his second White House term.
As such, the recent hearing saw testimonies from several key former officials from the Trump Justice Department, including Donald Trump’s own former acting Attorney General, Jeffrey Rosen, who replaced Bill Barr after his dramatic resignation, and whose testimony today laid waste to Donald’s Big Lie.
One of those former Trump Justice Department officials to testify was Richard Donoghue, who shared notes that he had taken during meetings with then-President Donald Trump as part of his testimony before the January 6th House Select Committee and the American people.
Donoghue’s notes were already public knowledge, as they were documented in a report by the Senate Judiciary Committee that was previously released. However, the former DOJ official’s testimony brought new attention to one specific note taken by Donoghue during a meeting with Donald Trump, in which he quoted the then-president telling officials to “just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”
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Now, former Obama-era Attorney General Eric Holder has weighed in on the hearing, specifically on the revelations and information that came from Donoghue’s testimony, and has pinpointed that aforementioned Trump quote as the “smoke gun” that could ultimately take Trump down with criminal charges.
“This is the smoking gun,” Holder wrote on Twitter in reference to Donoghue’s damning note. “Coupled with other testimony demonstrates both Trump’s substantive involvement and corrupt intent, requisite state of mind.”
Trump – “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen”. This is the smoking gun. Coupled with other testimony demonstrates both Trump’s substantive involvement and corrupt intent, requisite state of mind.
— Eric Holder (@EricHolder) June 23, 2022
In addition to this particularly damning Trump quote, Donoghue shared other notes with the House Committee, including one where Trump allegedly told DOJ officials that they were “obligated to tell people that this was an illegal, corrupt election.”
The former DOJ official explained to the Committee why he decided to start taking notes in these meetings with the then-president, revealing that Trump so often dreamt up new allegations of voter fraud that it eventually got to a point where writing them down was the only possible way of keeping up with it all.
“I simply reached out and grabbed a notepad off my wife’s nightstand and I started writing it down,” Donoghue recalled of a phone conversation he had with Donald Trump.
“That had to do with an allegation that more than 200,000 votes were certified in the state of Pennsylvania that were not cast. Sometimes, the president would say it was 205, 250, but I hadn’t heard this before. I wanted to get the allegation down clearly so we could look into it if appropriate. That is why I started taking notes. As a conversation continued, I would continue to take notes.”
Dare I hope, these public hearings could finally be the end of Donald Trump.
Watch Donoghue’s testimony here:
Donoghue says that on December 27, 2020, Trump urged him to simply declare the election “corrupt” and then just “leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen.” Donoghue has contemporaneous notes backing this up. pic.twitter.com/cVzExCKZVU
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 23, 2022
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
