justice department on its own terms and today. here s the problem that has just landed in attorney general merrick garland s lap. the problem is that before, in the end, they finally all offered to quit to stop this plot, before they did that, a bunch of them helped in the plot. they didn t just passively observe that this is what trump wanted and this is what trump was pursuing and this is how trump wanted to use the u.s. justice department. they helped him use the justice department to advance this plot up to a point. richard donoghue, the deputy attorney general telling trump, it ll will be bad for you, bad for the country, we will all quit. he looks like a great star. before that, we know he took trump s bat bleep theories about voter fraud, stealing the election from him in multiple states and he sent those trump
the news of that report was broken late last night by katie benner who has been crushing this story since before day one. thank you, again, for making time to be here and understanding this reporting. it remains one of the most amazing stories of our time. thanks for having me. in terms of this interim report by the judiciary committee, how far along should we see what they re trying to figure out, what materials they want access to, and what they still want to get? from what i know about baseball, i would say we re in the third or fourth inning. they want to speak with jeff clark, for example, who is somebody who has not responded to any of their requests. as you can see from this report, we have a really full picture of what the experience was like on the justice department side, how they felt getting these requests from the white house to help upend the results of the election. what their testimony, their notes, their extensive
if you don t sign it, you here not going to be the attorney general. i ll sign it. they re going to tell republicans in the state legislatures where biden won that the justice department is treating the election as a crime scene. they re willing to do it and trump is very willing to put him in the skrus it is department so he can carry out that plot. everyone else says they ll quit, make a stink. it will look bad. that s what stops it. dramatic stuff. it s dramatic stuff. these justice department officials we know apparently white house council and his deputy all threatening to resign in this circumstance makes them the stars of their own movies here. makes them seem like they really saved us. here is the problem. here s the problem not just for them being, you know, cast as heroes in their own telling of the movie. here s the problem for the u.s.
your office to go chase this down. it s not the way the u.s. justice department is supposed to work. so now, now that we know the justice department did work that way under trump, what s the justice department going to do about it? what does the justice department do with this new knowledge that its senior officials up to the very highest levels of the department, attorney general, deputy attorney general, they tried to use the department to kind of do those favors for trump to try to avert it at a senior level, use the powers of that department for that purpose. it can t be that you just get to leave and move on and the next person who holds that job gets
i told him no i did not know jeffrey clark. who is he? mr. donahue explained to me that clark was the assistant general for the environmental natural resources division, and he was also at the time, the acting chief of the civil division. he said jeff clark had quote, the presidents year. i asked him, what he meant by that. and he mentioned that jeff clark, in the justice department sign on to some letter suggesting the general assembly of the state legislature in georgia should call a special session, and they should refuse to certify the electoral college votes. also, mr. clark wanted the justice department to intervene or join, and i can t remember exactly, in a civil lawsuit. that was filed by the trump campaign, and i said well that seems, that s very, that s crazy. that s just highly crazy. i think the words i used, were bat bleep crazy. and that was the description. richard donahue told me that