Trump's acting attorney general testified for 7 hours on the former president's efforts to overturn the election, Sen. Dick Durbin says

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Trump's acting attorney general testified for 7 hours on the former president's efforts to overturn the election, Sen. Dick Durbin says
Sen. Dick Durbin and then-President Donald Trump. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
  • Durbin said Jeffrey Rosen "told us a lot" about Trump's efforts to overturn the election.
  • The Senate Majority Whip said Rosen testified for seven hours.
  • Rosen said he learned "how directly, personally involved the president was."
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Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said former President Donald Trump's acting attorney general testified for seven hours about Trump's efforts to overturn the presidential election.

Durbin told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that Jeffrey Rosen "told us a lot. Seven hours of testimony."

Rosen testified privately before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Durbin chairs, on Saturday.

Durbin said of Rosen: "I thought he was very open. And there was a lot there. An awful lot there. You can imagine: seven hours of testimony. And it really is important that we ask these questions because what was going on in the Department of Justice was frightening from a constitutional point of view."

CNN's Dana Bash asked Durbin what he thought was the most shocking part of Rosen's testimony.

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Durbin replied: "Just how directly and personally involved the president was, the pressure he was putting on Jeffrey Rosen. It was real, very real, and it was very specific."

He said that Rosen "was being asked by the White House, leadership in the White House, to meet with certain people who had these wild, bizarre theories of why the election wasn't valid and he refused to do it."

The Washington Post reported in July that Trump called Rosen almost daily during the last few months of his presidency to pressure him into helping overturn the election results.

And House lawmakers released emails in June that showed the Trump White House pressuring Rosen to challenge election results in parts of the country.

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