Donald Trump's Big Weekend
or the unspoken conversation of January 3, 2021
The unfolding story of the three hour meeting between Jeffrey Rosen, Acting Attorney General, Richard Donoghue, Acting Deputy Attorney General, Jeffrey Clark1, the Acting Deputy Attorney General for the Civil Division, and President Donald Trump on January 3, 2021 is missing something2.
Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer by trade before serving in the Justice Department, had been trying to get Rosen and Donoghue to sign onto a sketchy plan to have Vice-President Pence replace slates of electors for various states on January 6, 2021 — the date upon which Joe Biden would be certified as the President-elect. Clark, according to the testimony of Rosen and Donohue, got told “no”.
It’s unlikely Clark would have made such a presentation had William Barr still been Attorney General. But, Barr resigned on December 23, 2020 and that made Jeffrey Rosen Acting Attorney General. Due to the Vacancies Act, Rosen had considerably less power than Barr as far as controlling other presidential appointees within the Justice Department. Unless and until Trump removed “acting” his title, Rosen’s position (and Donoghue’s) was temporary and tenuous.
At some point after his meeting with Rosen and Donoghue, Clark decided to back-door his way into a meeting with Trump. Clark’s sales pitch on Sunday January 3rd was essentially “make me Attorney General and I will make this happen”. Donald Trump, who said in March 2018 “I like turnover. I like chaos.”, decided that Jeffrey Rosen should be in the meeting. And Rosen was insistent that Richard Donoghue should be there too. Donoghue, who had been walking around the mall in a pair of muddy jeans and an Army t-shirt that day, ran into the meeting without changing his clothes.
Trump hurled his usual invectives at Rosen and Donoghue and seemed to be leaning towards giving Clark both the go-ahead to put the DOJ in the driver’s seat on his plan to stop the Electoral Ballot count on January 6th and making Clark Attorney General. Donohue advised Trump that he would face hundreds of Justice Department resignations, if he named Clark Attorney General.
When Clark pushed back, Donoghue reminded Clark he was an environmental lawyer who knew next to nothing about criminal law. Trump saw the poor optics of mass resignations and decided against making any changes.
What is missing?
One would think that Rosen or Donoghue would have brought up the fiasco that had occurred the day before.
Donald Trump had called the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to ask him to find “11,800” votes. Mark Meadows, Rudy Guiliani, John Lott, John Eastman, Peter Navarro, Cleta Mitchell, Kurt Hilbert, and Alex Kaufman were present on the White House end. Raffensperger had counsel on his end3. There were six attorneys in the room with Trump telling him what he was doing was perfectly legal4.
Except, it wasn’t. Just ask the counsel to Vice President Mike Pence5.
And the very next day, Clark was touting the same legal weirdness.
Clark was the Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division. He was named to head the Civil Rights Division in September 2020.
https://wapo.st/3zD9JVl
Ryan Germany
Navarro and Lott are not attorneys.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/11/pence-trump-jan-6-lawyer-memo-00038996