the custody of an i.c.e. agent whose name he had. i told him that i.c.e. was part of department of homeland security. i hadn t heard about this. if department of homeland security needed our assistance, we, of course, would provide it. but it was really up to dhs to make a call if their agent was involved, and he said, fine, i understand. can you just make sure that ken, meaning ken cuccinelli, knows about this. i said, fine, i would pass that along to him. i eventually contacted ken cuccinelli later that evening and i said, this is what the president told me. if you guys have anything you think should be brought to our attention, let me know. and he said, thank you, and that was it. mr. cipollone left the meeting convinced the president would not appoint mr. clark, but he didn t think the president had actually accepted the truth about the election. sure enough, all the same debunked theories appeared in a speech at the ellipse three days later.
he was on speakerphone. the president said i am sitting here with the acting attorney general. he told me is your job to seize machines and is you not doing your job. he responded. did you ever tell the president that the department of homeland security could seize voting machines? no. certainly not. during the meeting, did the president tell you that he would remove you and mr. rosen because you weren t declaring there was election fraud? toward the end of the meeting, the president, again, was getting very agitated. he said people tell me i should just get rid of votes, both of you. i just remove you and make a change in leadership. put jeff clark in. maybe something will finally get done. i responded, as earlier in the call, you should have the leadership that you want. but understand, united dates
convince the president not to go down the wrong path that mr. clark seemed to be educating. it wasn t about me. there is only 17 days left in the administration at that point. i would have been perfectly content to have either to my left or right replace me. if anybody wanted to do that. i did not want for the department of justice to be put in a posture where it would be doing things that were not consistent with the truth, not consistent with its own appropriate role, or not consistent with the constitution. so, i did four things as soon as mr. clark left my office on that sunday. number one, i called mark meadows. i said i need to see the president right away. he was agreeable and set up a meeting. for 6:15 on sunday. about two hours away. two, i called baloney. the white house counsel.
that was on the saturday meeting, january 2nd. mr. donahue and i had with him. he, again, raised to both of us that he wanted us to both sign that letter. did mr. clark say he would turn down the president s offer if he reversed your position and signed the letter? yes. did mr. clark, you still refused to sign that ticket. that s right. i think mr. donahue and i were both very consistent that there was no way we were going to sign the letter. it didn t matter what mr. clark s, you know, proposition was in terms of his own activities. we were not going to sign that letter as long as we were in charge of the justice department. thank you for that, by the way. mr. donahue, were you expecting to have to attend the meeting at the white house on sunday,
a graveyard. again, the premise that which mr. donoghue has said, but that mr. clark could come in and take over the department of justice and do something different was just an absurd premise, and all he was doing, mr. clark, by putting himself forward, was blowing himself up and if the president were to have gone that course, it would have been a grievous error for the president as well. mr. cipollone, the white house counsel, told the committee that mr. engel s response had a noticeable impact on the president, that this was a turning point in the conversation. mr. donoghue, towards the end of this meeting, did the president ask you what was going to happen to mr. clark? he did. when we finally got to the i would say the last 15 minutes of the meeting, the president s decision was apparent. he announced that jeff clark tried to scrape his way back and ask the president to reconsider. the president doubled down, said, no, i ve made my decision. that s it. we re not going to