Q (cont'd): The president sent a draft lawsuit to be filed by the DoJ in the supreme court. He wanted you, Mr. Rosen and Mr. Cippollone specifically to review it. You and the DoJ opposed filing it.
A: I think the memo speaks to this, but this was a draft lawsuit that was apparently prepared by people outside the DoJ. Styled as (???) brought by the US and by the acting solicitor general as an original jurisdiction matter in the Supeme Court. It was a meritless lawsuit that was not something that the DoJ could or would bring. Somebody actually prepared it to be handed to the president and he forwarded it for our review. That memo explains why the DoJ as Mr. Donoghue said earlier, doesn't have any standing to bring such a lawsuit. The lawsuit would have been untimely. The states had already chosen their electors, the electors had been certified, they cast their votes, and they had been sent to Washington, DC. Neither Georgia nor any of the other states on December 28th or whenever this was was in a position to change those votes. Essentially, the election had happened. The only thing that hadn't happen was the formal counting of the votes.
WOOOOORDYYYYYYYYYYYYY
A (cont'd): Obviously, the person who drafted this lawsuit didn't really understand, in my view, the law and/or how the Supreme Court works or the DoJ. It's just not something we were gonna do. The acting AG asked me to prepare a memo with talking points so he could explain our reasons when he spoke to the president about this.
Q: So would you say it was an unusual request?
A: Certainly. For the DoJ to file a lawsuit drafted by outside lawyers was certainly an unusual request.
Q: In mid December, did the White House ask AG Barr to consider whether a special counsel could be appointed to look into election fraud issues?
A: Yes. I think the president, probably vocal at the time that, he believed that special counsel was something that should be considered to look into election fraud. There is a specific request where the AG sought my legal advice in December.
Q: And what was your conclusion?
A: This request was whether the AG could appoint a special counsel, a state attorney general, to conduct an investigation. As a legal matter, under federal law, the AG actually has fairly wide discretion to delegate prosecutorial authority, including to state prosecutors which happen to assist the DoJ. Obviously a state AG exercising prosecutorial authority on behalf of the DoJ would be fairly uncommon. When we looke at the issue, what we saw was actually that the state law, the state was Louisiana, that the state law precluded the state AG from accepting any official position on behalf of the US government so that answered the question that it was not legally assailable.
Q: During the time at the DoJ, was there ever any basis to appoint a special counsel to investigate president Trump's election fraud claims?
A: Neither AG Barr nor acting AG Rosen did appoint a special counsel. You would appoint a special counsel when the DoJ, when there's a basis for an investigation, and the DoJ essentially has a conflict of interest. You'd get someone who is independent outside the department to handle such an investigation. Neither AG Barr nor acting AG Rosen ever believed that that was appropriate or necessary in this case.
Kinzinger: In fact, AG Barr had already told the president that there was no need for this special counsel. He actually stated that publicly, and we'll see that in a video from December 21st.
Video of then AG William Barr saying he doesn't see a reason to appoint a special counsel is shown.