Katie Benner at the Times reported a couple of days ago:

Byung J. Pak, a former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, told congressional investigators on Wednesday that his abrupt resignation in January had been prompted by Justice Department officials’ warning that President Donald J. Trump intended to fire him for refusing to say that widespread voter fraud had been found in Georgia, according to a person familiar with his testimony.

To put it another way, Trump tried to coerce a US attorney [i.e. a DoJ employee] in Atlanta to lie about voter fraud in Georgia, and was going to fire him for refusing to comply. Trump was going to fire a DoJ attorney for refusing to lie for Trump.

While he did not discuss Mr. Trump’s role in his decision to resign at the time, he told the Senate panel that the president had been dismayed that Mr. Pak had investigated allegations of voter fraud in Fulton County, Ga., and not found evidence to support them, according to the person familiar with the statements.

Mr. Pak testified that top department officials had made clear that Mr. Trump intended to fire him over his refusal to say that the results in Georgia had been undermined by voter fraud, the person said. Resigning would pre-empt a public dismissal.

To put it another way, Trump intended to fire him for not lying about the election so that Trump could overturn it.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is examining Mr. Pak’s departure as part of its broader investigation into the final weeks of the Trump administration and the White House’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department to falsely assert that the election was corrupt.

To put it another way, the committee is digging into Trump’s efforts to force the Justice Department to steal the election for him.

The NY Times doesn’t allow itself to put things as bluntly as we can, but the result is that the dirty reality gets lost under the polite language.

Mr. Trump met with top Justice Department officials to discuss the possibility of replacing the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, with Jeffrey Clark, a department leader who was willing to falsely tell Georgia officials that fraud might have affected the election outcome.

Trump wanted to replace the acting AG with one who would commit crimes for him in order to steal the election for him.

Terry Gross talked to Benner yesterday, which is good, because she too can put things more bluntly than the Times allows itself to.

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. Donald Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election results and declare himself the winner are being investigated by the Department of Justice’s inspector general, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

See? First substantive sentence, she’s already clearer than the Times house style. I kind of wish their house style weren’t quite so cautious. I kind of wish Benner could have led with: Trump tried to steal the election, and a DoJ lawyer he tried to force to help him testified to Congress today.

My guest, New York Times reporter Katie Benner, broke the story that led two investigations. That article revealed that Jeffrey Clark, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, tried to get DOJ leaders to falsely claim that investigations into voter fraud in Georgia cast doubt on the Electoral College results. She also reported that Clark had plotted with President Trump to oust the acting attorney general, replace him with Clark and use the Justice Department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results.

In hopes of stealing the entire election and installing Trump as dictator. We’d be another Belarus right now if they’d succeeded.