​​Former US attorney in Atlanta says abrupt resignation stemmed from not peddling Trump voter fraud claim

A former U.S. attorney in Atlanta told a Senate panel on Wednesday that he had abruptly resigned from his role in January because Justice Department officials signaled former President Trump wanted to fire him for not validating his claims about widespread voter fraud during the 2020 election, The New York Times reported. 

During a closed-door session with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Byung Pak told congressional investigators that officials at the Justice Department told him the former president intended to fire him because he refused to back up false claims that the 2020 election had been undermined by widespread voter fraud in Georgia, the newspaper reported, citing a person familiar with Pak’s testimony.

The testimony stems from events that happened several days before Pak resigned.

Two days before Pak announced his departure, Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) during a phone call to investigate his allegations of voter fraud in the state — claims of which Raffensperger said were factually unsupported, The Times noted, citing leaked audio.

During the call, Trump also referred to Pak as a “never-Trumper U.S. attorney.”

The following day, Trump met with Jeffrey Clark, a former acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division under the former president, and then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, and voiced his frustration that the Justice Department had validated the state’s election results, the newspaper reported.

A top official at the department soon reached out to Pak after the meeting to tell him the president was upset with him because he would not back his conspiracies of widespread voter fraud, the newspaper reported. The next day, Pak announced his resignation. 

Pak’s resignation is part of a wider probe by the Senate panel that is investigating the weeks between the 2020 election and President Biden’s inauguration and how the White House sought to pressure the Justice Department to take up unproven assertions that the 2020 election was rigged.

Rosen also spoke with investigators on the Senate panel last week as well as the Justice Department’s inspector general office.

The Hill has reached out to Trump’s office and Pak for comment.