Trump DOJ officials may have tried to influence 2020 election through media leaks: IG report

Source: ABC News

January 7, 2025, 3:17 PM


Senior Justice Department officials serving under Donald Trump's first administration may have violated federal law in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election by pushing for pandemic-related investigations that targeted states with Democratic governors, and then leaking private information about those investigations to friendly media outlets in a potential attempt to influence the election, according to a previously-undisclosed report from the Justice Department's internal watchdog.

The inspector general's report, obtained by ABC News, concluded that for one of the officials -- a senior member of the department's public affairs team who the report said first hatched the alleged plan to leak investigative information -- "the upcoming election was the motivating factor."

The report specifically pointed to a text message he sent in mid-October 2020, describing a proposed leak to a major New York-area tabloid about reviews of COVID-related deaths at nursing homes in New York and New Jersey as "our last play on them before [the] election" -- "but it's a big one," he added, according to the report.

The inspector general's report comes just weeks before Trump takes office again, after winning reelection two months ago in part by promoting questionable claims that the Biden administration had used the Justice Department to further its own political agenda. Last week, the inspector general's office released a brief and vague summary of its report, saying only that three former officials had violated Justice Department policies by leaking "non-public DOJ investigative information" to "select reporters, days before an election."

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/internal-watchdog-found-doj-officials-trump-sought-influence/story?id=117419850