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election result. it s a pressure campaign that came incredibly and alarmingly close to actually working. it could have completely changed the game for trump and his allies on january 6th if and only if it had succeeded. washington post is out with stunning new details on efforts by doj official jeffrey clark to essentially take over the justice department, efforts which culminated in a january 3rd meeting previously reported on by the post, the new york times and other outlets inside the oval office between clark, the man who would become the acting a.g. and his deputy richard donahue and of course one donald j. trump from the post reporting. clark had outlined a plan. in a letter he wanted to send to the leaders of key states that joe biden won. it said the justice department had, quote, identified significant concerns about the vote and that the state should consider sending a separate slate of electors supporting donald j. trump for congress to approve. in fact, ....
Be attorney general. quote, he s never even been a criminal attorney. he s never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. he s never been in front of a grand jury, much less a trial jury. clark objects, quote, i ve done a lot of very complicated appeals in civil litigation, environmental litigation and things like that clark says according to donohue s deposition. that s right, donohue says. you re an environmental lawyer. how about you go back to your office and we ll call you when there s an oil spill. maybe trolls would call that a solid burn. betsy, what s so amazing is the lord of the flies element to these clashes taking place in front of donald trump, and i m guessing that s his jam. he loves that. yeah, no question one of the more distinctive components of shall we say trump s leadership style was that he loved watching his aides fight with each other. ....
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 ....
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 ....
National correspondent for politico and an msnbc contributor, and with me at the table, nick con fi sor ree, an msnbc political analyst, betsy i want to dive into some of the reporting. the production of what they re doing, which is really writing to taped testimony is so intricate, and theirs goes on for two hours. the delay is understandable, but this piece and you ve done some reporting on this, the jeffrey clark plot, and there s some great new reporting in the post that brings us even further inside the room, this doj piece is central to the whole thing. this is that innermost ring that congressman raskin talked about, donald trump s plan to have the election results cast as invalid or corrupt by doj, and then in the words of donald trump has taken in notes by mr. donohue, me and our allies will do the rest. i don t know that people realize just how perilous this ....