Trump pressured individual US attorneys to take up his election-fraud claims, a new book said.
Trump was also furious when AG Barr didn't back his claims, Michael Wolff wrote.
He fumed that, had he won, Barr would have "licked the floor if I asked him to," the book said.
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Then-President Donald Trump called US attorneys individually to pressure them to launch investigations into his bogus election-fraud claims, but was ignored, a new book said.
The claim was recounted in "Landslide: The Final Days of the Trump Presidency" by Michael Wolff, an early copy of which was obtained by Insider.
Per the book, Trump decided to call individual US attorneys in November to pressure them to open investigations — district by district — in the hope of substantiating his baseless claims of election and voter fraud.
Wolff wrote that Trump bypassed then-Attorney General William Barr and started "personally calling around to various US attorneys in swing state districts." One example, it said, was Trump appointee William McSwain, the head of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The book went on to say that Trump thought it was "inconceivable" that they "didn't see the crime here" and just as inconceivable that they "wouldn't do what he wanted."
Part of Trump's frustration stemmed from Barr's own refusal to investigate the president's and Rudy Giuliani's allegations of widespread election malfeasance.
By late November, the book said, Trump had started ranting about Barr to his aides, fuming that, "If I had won ... Barr would have licked the floor if I asked him to. What a phony!"
Trump grew even more enraged when Barr told The Associated Press on December 1 that the Justice Department and the FBI had no evidence of election fraud on a scale to affect the results of the race.
Less than two weeks later, Barr resigned.
Trump's office and McSwain, who is now in private practice, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Trump launched a campaign on several fronts last year to persuade state GOP officials in several swing states to back his bid to overturn his election defeat.
The New York Times reported earlier this week that Trump tried twice to call a GOP leader in Arizona as he was trying to overturn the election result, but was ignored.
Election-fraud lawsuits have also been defeated or thrown out in multiple courts, including the US Supreme Court, last year.
But several GOP-controlled legislatures have introduced sweeping laws to restrict access to voting, a sign of the lasting legacy of Trump's election fraud conspiracy theory.
Liz Harrington, a spokeswoman for the former president, has dismissed Wolff's book as containing a series of falsehoods.
"All these stories from the Michael Wolff book are not true. Wolff never asked President Trump about them, if he had, he would have refuted them. Fake News!" she tweeted on July 6.
Wolff wrote in response that all the details of his book had either been confirmed by aides to Trump, or, if disputed, by two other sources.
Night_Owl74 on July 9th, 2021 at 15:11 UTC »
Trump is the epitome of dangerously stupid.
Taskerst on July 9th, 2021 at 14:46 UTC »
He didn't actually believe there was fraud, he just wanted rampant and very public investigations. See, if the public saw there were investigations, it would support the big lie, influence the only court he cares about (public opinion) and work his followers into a froth. He wanted 10 million people from all walks of life acting on his behalf on January 6th, not 300 unemployed people who haven't bathed in a week.
Solidus-Prime on July 9th, 2021 at 13:54 UTC »
I really wish I could meet trump just so I could show him the biggest amount of disrespect he's ever received in his life.