Trump Election Pressure Memo Disclosed; Lawmakers to Get His Tax Returns 

WASHINGTON - Former President Donald Trump suffered a pair of setbacks Friday when the Justice Department cleared the way for the release of his tax records and also disclosed a memo showing he urged top officials to falsely claim his election defeat was "corrupt."

Handwritten notes taken by Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue in December and released Friday by the chair of the House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee paint a damning picture of Trump as he desperately sought to get the department to take the unprecedented step of intervening to try to upend his 2020 election loss. Hours later, the department cleared the way for the Internal Revenue Service to hand over Trump's tax records to congressional investigators — a move he has long fought. The fact that the Justice Department allowed the handwritten notes concerning the election to be turned over to congressional investigators marked a dramatic shift from actions taken during the Trump administration, which repeatedly invoked executive privilege to skirt congressional scrutiny.