The pattern became so extraordinary that at one point White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows sent a YouTube video to the department officials of Pennsylvania Republican Representative Scott Perry alleging that an Italian defense contractor had uploaded software to a satellite that carries the voices of Mr. Trump.
A top Defense Department official, Kashyap Patel, contacted Mr. Donoghue about the claim, and the Acting Defense Secretary, Christopher C. Miller, contacted a defense attaché in Italy to discuss the claim, who never was substantiated.
About 90 minutes after Mr. Donoghue mr. Trump had persuaded Mr. Clark as Acting Attorney General, Mr. Trump still couldn’t get it out and called Mr. an immigration and customs officer in Georgia had confiscated a truckload of shredded ballots. There appeared to be nothing wrong, Mr Donoghue testified.
Trump considered appointing a loyalist lawyer as special counsel.
While Mr. Trump was looking for a way to substantiate the false claims of fraud, he attempted to install a loyalist as special counsel to investigate them. One of Mr. Trump’s personal attorneys, Sidney Powell — who had become a public face of Mr Trump’s efforts to undo the election — said in a commission played testimony that Mr. Trump discussed with her the possibility to take up that position in December .
The commission also played testimony from William P. Barr, who served as Attorney General until mid-December 2020, saying there was no basis for appointing special counsel. And the committee suggested the idea was part of the larger effort to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Mr Biden’s victory and open the door for Congress to consider alternate slates of Trump voters from swing states.
“So let’s think about this, what would a special counsel do?” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Illinois Republican, who led the day’s questioning. “With only a few days to go until election certification, it wasn’t something to investigate. An investigation, led by special counsel, would only create an illusion of legitimacy and provide false cover for those who would object, including those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.”
