WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday posted on social media a call for a special prosecutor to investigate the 2020 election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden more than four years ago.
Despite a flurry of lawsuits from the Trump campaign in the wake of his 2020 election loss, no evidence has emerged of any mass voter fraud schemes that had any impact on the election.
Trump, on his Truth Social platform, falsely claimed that he won the 2020 election in “LANDSLIDE!” and that the election “was a total FRAUD!”
“A Special Prosecutor must be appointed,” Trump wrote. “This cannot be allowed to happen again in the United States of America! Let the work begin!”
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on Trump’s call for a special prosecutor.
Trump told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” in a December 2024 interview that he wouldn’t direct the Justice Department to look back at the 2020 election, despite his repeated false assertions that it was marred by fraud.
“To the people who say that you’re now directing your Justice Department to investigate 2020 and they want to move on — is that a good use of precious resources? Is that what you want them to do?” moderator Kristen Welker asked Trump.
“Just so you know, I have the right to do that but I’m not interested in that,” Trump replied.
He added: “I’m not interested. I have the absolute right. I’m the chief law enforcement officer, you do know that. I’m the president. But I’m not interested in that. You know what I’m interested in? Drilling, and getting prices down, and stopping people from pouring into our border that come from prisons and mental institutions.”
Earlier in the week, Trump also made reference to FBI Director Kash Patel’s boosting of a 2020 election conspiracy based on a single unverified claim from an unidentified FBI confidential human source about the use of fake licenses to vote.
Trump himself has faced two separate special counsel investigations: The Robert Mueller investigation during his first term in office and the Jack Smith investigation during Biden’s presidency.
Smith’s investigation resulted in two separate federal criminal cases against Trump. One charged him over his handling of classified documents, while another charged him in connection with his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
In the classified documents case, Trump’s legal team argued that Smith’s appointment was invalid and that Congress never authorized special counsels. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who was handling the case, then ruled that Smith’s appointment was “unlawful,” a decision the Justice Department appealed. The Justice Department dropped its appeal of Cannon’s ruling after Trump took office in January.
Smith’s office dropped the Jan. 6-related case after Trump won the 2024 election last November.
“Trump knew that there was no outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election, that many of the specific claims that he made were untrue, and that he had lost the election,” Smith wrote in his public report.
After beginning his second term, Trump quickly granted clemency to roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants on the day of his inauguration, freeing many who had admitted to or been convicted of assaulting members of law enforcement during that attack.
