own very quiet investigation of what led to january 6th. and this doj lawyer, an environmental lawyer, i should say, that the former president wanted to make acting attorney general in the 11th hour, now federal agents at jeffrey clark s home overnight? reporter: they raised his home on wednesday, david. this is a clear sign that the justice department investigation has gone beyond those who physically attacked the capitol on january 6th to officials in trump s inner circle and by the way, jeffrey clark did testify, give a deposition to this committee, but we heard today that he repeopledly refused to answer questions, citing his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. all right, jon karl on the air all afternoon with us, thank you. so, now we turn to those requests for pardons. even though the department of justice, his own acting attorney general, the claims were not true, that there was no evidence of widespread fraud that would have changed the election in any
under oath, the members of congress who pushed the president s false claims even though the doj told the president they were not true, the members who then requested pardons after january 6th. one white house lawyer saying even nixon didn t issue pardons this broad. rachel scott on the requests for pardons tonight, but first, our chief washington correspondent jonathan karl on the hill leading us off again tonight. reporter: tonight, top officials in the trump justice department describe the immense pressure donald trump put on them to use the power of their department to help overturn the presidential election. after attorney general bill barr, who had told trump there was no election fraud, resigned in late december 2020, trump put pressure on his replacement, jeffrey rosen, to do what barr had refused to do. so, between december 23rd and january 3rd, the president either called me or met with me virtually every day with one or two exceptions, like christmas day. reporter: trum
president was demanding and find real voter fraud. so, i said, mr. president, you re talking about putting a man in that seat who has never tried a criminal case, who has never conducted a criminal investigation. it s impossible, it s absurd, it s not going to happen and it s going to fail. reporter: trump then asked this question. he said, so, suppose i do this, suppose i replace him, jeff rosen, with him, geoff clark, what would you do? and i said, mr. president, i would resign immediately. i m not working one minute for this guy. you re going to lose your entire department leadership. every single a.g. will walk out. reporter: ultimately, the threat of mass resignations worked. the president decided not to name geoff clark the acting attorney general. trump s pressure campaign on the justice department did not let up. after the horror of january 6th, a number of republican members of congress who had been pushing trump s lies there s widespread evidence
against president trump being discovered here. joining me right now, a commentator and a attorney from new york. senator graham s claims that there is a bureaucratic coup against the president. what do you see? i mean i don t see evidence of that. i don t understand how-he can see evidence of that if he believes that rosenstein said he didn t do it. lindsey graham said he is going to listen to the temperature christine blasey ford, but decided he will confirm kavanaugh. i don t know what s going on with lindsey graham. it s a strange coup if rosenstein was a george w. bush appointee who trump appointed. people seem to be forgetting that. he is not a hold over from the obama administration.