Doug Mastriano copied Bill McSwain on a letter in December detailing a litany of false claims in an effort to overturn the 2020 election.
PENNSYLVANIA — In their ongoing investigation into Donald Trump’s pressure campaign to use the Department of Justice to overturn the 2020 election, the U.S. House Oversight Committee released a trove of documents yesterday, including a letter from state Senator Doug Mastriano to Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue that copied the then-U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain. Mastriano’s letter outlines pages of false claims and absurd conspiracy theories about the 2020 election in Pennsylvania — similar to rhetoric that helped incite the deadly insurrection on January 6th — and raises new questions about what Bill McSwain knew about Trump’s pressure campaign.
The newly released documents reveal that Pennsylvania was central to Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and show that Mastriano’s letter was used as “evidence” in an effort by Trump allies to pressure the Department of Justice. As the New York Times reported previously, these documents were drafted as Trump plotted with a Justice Department lawyer to oust the Acting Attorney General.
For the first time, these documents show that Bill McSwain was aware of Mastriano’s false claims and the effort to pressure the Justice Department to intervene. As he prepares to run for governor, McSwain must come clean to Pennsylvanians and answer questions about what he knew about Trump’s pressure campaign and what he did in response.
Questions Bill McSwain Should Answer:
— Bill McSwain clearly knew about Mastriano’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department to intervene in court to overturn the election. Did McSwain — or anyone in his office — have correspondence of any kind with Mastriano or his office about this letter or Mastriano’s efforts to overturn the election?
— Did McSwain have any communication with Justice Department officials about Trump and Mastriano’s false claims about Pennsylvania’s election?
— As U.S. Attorney, did McSwain use his office to follow up on or investigate any of Mastriano’s false claims?
McSwain has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the Big Lie, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer last month, “That’s not what I have any comment on at this point.”
“Bill McSwain has consistently avoided answering any question about the Big Lie, but the Mastriano-McSwain letter makes clear that he was aware of the concerted effort to pressure the Justice Department to intervene on Trump’s behalf,” said Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesman Brendan Welch. “It’s time for Bill McSwain to come clean and tell Pennsylvanians whether he was involved in Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the election, and what he did in response to Mastriano’s letter. McSwain’s ongoing refusal to denounce the Big Lie and Trump’s dangerous conspiracy theories about the election shows just how out-of-step he is with the majority of Pennsylvanians.”
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