appointed to the number two position in the department of justice, the deputy jeffrey rosen, the new acting attorney general ppt two men inherited a department under constant and public attack, by the sitting president of the united states, fighting to hold onto an election he falsely claimed had been stolen. trump thought the justice department was an arm of his presidency and a way for him to tell them what to do, and they should do his bidding and what he wanted. as the new targets of tom steyer, rosen and donahue. that fielded neil daily complaints from donald trump. between december 23rd and january 3rd, the president either called me or met with me virtually every day. of the common element of all of this was the president expressing his dissatisfaction that the justice department man in his view, had not done enoug to investigate election fraud.
overturn an election. you were on george w. bush s short list for the supreme court. you re not some raging liberal. is that fair? totally fair. reporter: michael ludig is a highly respected retired federal court judge. ludig did not hear any of the trump frauds cases but he and colleagues analyzed more than 60 of them. we reviewed each individual claim and decided that there was nothing that would have changed the result in a single precinct, let alone a single state, let alone nationally. ahead you re asking me to do something that s against my oath, and i m not going to do that. donald trump puts the squeeze on state house leaders across the country. it s going to have a big impact on tuesday if you guys don t get this thing straightened out fast. if your instinct is to help.
pedialyte helps you hydrate during recovery. we re in my office. this is the speaker s office. reporter: it s not every day a statehouse politician gets a call from a u.s. president. but that s what happened to arizona speaker republican rusty bowers after the 2020 election. came home from church. my wife and i were sitting in the driveway. reporter: the white house popped up on his screen. so i take the call. i sat there in my little prius, had a chat with the president with bad phone reception.
were justified in their vio violence, and that it was vice president pence who was allowin an election to be stolen. [mike pence and the betrayed the people of the united states p inside the capitol the vice president was rushed from the senate floor. secret serpents secret servants helped clear path to safety. if we lose any more time to we may lose the ability to le leave. and white house security official who chose to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation explain exactly how dire the situation was for pe pence, and his secret service detail. hours of the team were slow to fear for our own lives. they were running out of option that were getting nervous. it sounds like we came very close to either [indiscernible]
but they were investigating. the department of justice had been debunking trump s wild election fraud lies one by one. the president chose to not listen. on december 27 phone call with rosen and donahue, president trump said the department had a obligation to, tell people tha this was an illegal corrupt election, despite the evidence of widespread fraud. trump also pressed them to publicly, just say the electio was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. there was an exact output from the president indicated that he had some political and that he wanted to pursue with congress. but by him telling us that we should say publicly that it was corrupt that concerned me. what his intent was for the department of justice to say we have indication that there was corruption, because from there you can take that seed of doubt and contraband republican members of congress can water