Ranking Members Raskin, Swalwell Statement on Senate Republicans’ Misdirected Outrage Regarding DOJ’s Investigation of the Criminal Conspiracy to Overturn the 2020 Presidential Election

Washington, D.C. (October 8, 2025)—Today, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, Ranking Member of the Select Subcommittee to Investigate the Remaining Questions Surrounding January 6, 2021, released the following statement on Senate Republicans’ latest attacks on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump and his co-conspirators for their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election:

“After he lost the 2020 presidential election to Joe Biden by more than seven million votes, 306-232 in the Electoral College, and after he and his MAGA supporters brought and lost more than 60 federal and state court cases alleging electoral fraud and corruption, Donald Trump continued to promote completely false claims of election fraud that his own Attorney General, William Barr, told him were ‘bullshit.’ He then developed a plan to coerce Vice President Pence to use his official position under the Twelfth Amendment to reject Electoral College votes from Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and other swing states won by Biden and to instead accept counterfeit Electoral College votes concocted for Trump. To intensify pressure on Pence and Congress to overthrow the official results of the election in this inside political coup, Trump orchestrated a massive protest and incited a violent mob to attack the United States Capitol and to ‘stop the steal’ by forcing Members of Congress out of their Chambers.

“There was no ‘spying’ on Members of Congress. Experienced federal prosecutors conducted an investigation setting forth overwhelming evidence of how President Trump worked with numerous persons, including private individuals, government officials, and Republican Members of Congress to carry out criminal acts designed to block the peaceful transfer of power and overthrow the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election. As part of this conspiracy, President Trump and his inner circle sought to enlist Republican Members in their efforts to submit false election certificates to Congress, to get Congress to reject the lawful election certificates, and to coerce Vice President Pence as the presiding officer over the electoral count. January 6 insurrectionists sought and obtained tours of the Capitol from Member offices in the days preceding their violent attack on the Capitol and its police officers. Even on the evening of January 6, 2021 when the Capitol was still being cleared of rioters, President Trump's allies were still calling Republican Senators to encourage them to refuse to certify Joe Biden as the rightful winner of the election.

“My Republican colleagues are likely not actually outraged at Jack Smith’s perfectly legitimate act of seeking four-days of phone records related to these crimes; they are outraged that anyone investigated the President’s insurrectionary plans on January 6 at all. This outrage should be directed at Donald Trump and his co-conspirators who put them on speed-dial during an Insurrection and sought to engage them in a criminal effort to block the peaceful transfer of power under the Constitution and overturn the will of the American people.

“But if my Colleagues are interested in protecting public servants from vindictive and arbitrary political investigations, why have my Republican colleagues remained silent while Donald Trump’s DOJ has arrested state and federal legislators for asking questions of the Secretary of Homeland Security and visiting constituents at hospitals? Why are they unbothered by the Trump DOJ prosecuting a Member of Congress for carrying out her constitutional duty of conducting oversight of the Administration or by the Trump DOJ directing U.S. Attorneys to indict political enemies, including sitting members of Congress, based on sham investigations that Trump's own appointees have denounced as baseless?

“The Department of Justice was not created to serve as the personal law firm of an incorrigibly lawless president. It exists to serve the American people and defend the rule of law and the rights of the people. My Republican colleagues should abandon their efforts to whitewash Trump’s attempted coup and accompanying insurrection when he lost the 2020 elections and instead join Democrats in opposing Trump’s transformation of DOJ into a tool of partisan retribution.”