confirmed it. he said, no, i wouldn t deny that at all. the pressure was intense, and if you listen to that speech on january 6th, which was the culminating moment, the speech was still going on as trump as pence took to the dais in the house chamber. trump mentions pence s name over and over and over again, getting that crowd riled up to the point that ultimately, they not only invaded the capitol, but they were calling for mike pence s head. and john carl, i think there s a tweet. i think trump attacks pence as the evacuation of the pence family is under way. how central is pence s decision going into that day, the advice he got from judge luttig, and his own small group of counselors, and donald trump s indifference and enthusiasm for violence being carried out
approve. in fact, clark s bosses had rejected that letter days earlier. now they learned clark was about to meet with trump, acting a.j. g. jeffrey rosen tracked down donohue who had been walking on the national mall. clark told trump that he would send the letter if the president named him attorney general. history is calling clark told the president according to a deposition are from donohue excerpted in a recent court filing. this is our opportunity. we can get this done he said. donohue urged trump not to put clark in charge. what happens if within 48 hours we have hundreds of resignations from your justice department because of your actions donohue said he asked trump. what does that say about your leadership? so donald trump ultimately decides replacing jeff rossen with jeffrey clark in this three-hour long meeting on january 23rd, 2021 along with
here. his plan called for him to be attorney general. his yearn for power, desire for that promotion, right? if he stays in office, if trump stays in office, this guy clark can be a.g. or comes back to office in two years. comes back. so again, i think understanding that opportunism was a core phenomenon in the trump presidency. throughout people who would not have gotten a third look for any other gop white house had important jobs in trump s white house. especially in the final week. because they were willing to do anything for him. it s funny, in every presidential administration there are people who come in at the very end just to serve out some time, punch a hole in their resume and be there and have the credential, and who knew that one of these guys tried to lead a coup within a coup at the most important office in the government in some ways, and what stopped him was the president, again, saying, well, it won t work. it won t pan out so i m not going to do it. right.
all of clark s actions is the subject of multiple probes by the doj s inspector general, the senate judiciary committee, and yes, the january 6th select committee. the committee was set to have a hearing on this very subject tomorrow. it is now postponed to next week according to the committee member who s leading that hearing. that s congressman adam kinzinger. the post says this about the committee s focus on jeff clark. quote, larger mysteries could still be solved by the january 6th committee hearing slated to examine clark s action including the crucial question of whether clark and his allies were acting on their own initiative or or whether they were one piece of a larger well-planned effort to keep trump in power. that question gets to the heart of the committee s professed mission proving there was a a, quote, coordinated multistep effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. joining us now congresswoman stephanie murphy of florida, member of the house select committee
we are all back, harry, betsy, and nick. let me read some more from this great reporting. the washington post reports inside the explosive oval office confrontation three days before january 6th, quote, suppose i do this trump says to donohue. suppose i replace rosen with clark, what would you do? sir, i would resign immediately he responded. there is no way i m serving under this guy. that would be clark. we re not the only ones, donohue said he told trump. you should understand that your entire department leadership will resign. every assistant attorney general will resign. mr. president, there aren t bureaucratic leftovers from another administration. you picked them. this is your leadership team. you sent every one of them to the senate. you got them confirmed. what s it going to say about you when we all walk out at the same time? donohue then tells trump that clark has no qualifications to