comfort to those who are engage being in insurrection is guilty of a federal crime. it is a crime difficult to prove. you have to have criminal intent here. you have if problem of proving what was in the president s mine. he was willfully blind. should he have known? yes. but if he did not i don t know that was a crime. not everyone shares that view. by the president of the united states would not be either a legal defense or a political defense to the president. that s about as clear as a former judge could say it. ultimately the justice department will decide whether to bring any charges against former president trurchl trn eastman or anyone else. in november, attorney general merrick garland appointed jack
all accounts joined the long list of wild white house meetings. the president turned to me and he said one thing we know, you, rosen aren t going to do anything. you don t even agree with the claims of election fraud, and this other guy at least might do something. it was basically jeff clark advocating for the leadership change and everyone else advocating against it. it was a very blunt, contentious conversation. hershman and i were on the same level of being the sort of street fighters of the meeting. when he finished discussing what he planned on doing, i said good excuse me, f-ing deal. congratulationed you just admitted the first act as attorney general would be committing a felony. you re clearly the right candidate for this job. white house counsel pat cipollone was vehemently against
as long as rosen ask donohue were in charge, they told the president they would not publicly back his false election fraud claims. so trump had to find someone who would help him do what he wanted to steal the election. jeff clark s name came up on the december 27th phone call with the president. he brought it up and said, look, people tell me i should change the leadership. people are telling me you two are not doing your job. i hear jeff clark is great. people tell me he could get in there and do something, and it was surprising to me. surprising because the president would have no reason to even know who jeffrey clark was. even within the department very few people had really heard of jeffrey clark. but donald trump had. unbeknownst to rosen and donohue, pennsylvania republican congressman scott perry had brought clark to the oval office to meet with president trump on december 22nd. the day after perry had been amongst republican members of congress who joined trump at the
overturning the 2020 election. trump also mentioned jeff clark on a separate call with rosen. he made what i regarded as a peculiar reference. i don t remember the fact quote, but it was something about did i know jeff clark or did i know who he was or something like that. i was quizzical as to how does the president even know mr. clark? rosen confronted clark who admitted he d broken the long-standing policy governing communication between the justice department and the white house. white house lawyers pat cipollone and patrick philbin also intervened and warned him not to communicate with the white house. clark agreed, but just two days later escalated the situation with an email that set off a series of events that would rock the justice department. we came in on monday, december 28th, a hectic day as they all were, and then in the afternoon we got that e-mail, which i had to sit down and read more than once to make sure i
understood what he was proposing. what was he proposing? he was proposing sending out a letter signed by the three of us, the acting attorney general, myself, and jeff clark, to georgia but also the other states, the other swing states as well. suggesting, essentially, that they set aside the electors assigned to support president-elect biden and hold hearings and basically had the state legislatures pick a new slate of electors. the letter claimed the u.s. department of justice s investigations had, quote, identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states including the state of georgia, unquote. was that true? no. while the letter was sent solely by jeff clark, it was written with the help of a new justice department employee named ken cue clou ski who according to the committee was