Emails show a top Trump DOJ official advocating for federal law enforcement to throw its weight behind a demand that Georgia reject Biden’s win in the state in last year’s election, ABC reports.
Then-acting civil division chief Jeffrey Clark sent a draft letter on Dec. 28, 2020 that asked the governor and state legislature of Georgia to convene a special session that would examine mythical allegations of mass voter fraud perpetuated by President Trump, ABC reported.
The letter, the report said, also appeared to assert that the DOJ wanted the state to examine the supposed issues as they related to appointing of presidential electors.
“While the Department of Justice believe[s] the Governor of Georgia should immediately call a special session to consider this important and urgent matter, if he declines to do so, we share with you our view that the Georgia General Assembly has implied authority under the Constitution of the United States to call itself into special session for [t]he limited purpose of considering issues pertaining to the appointment of Presidential Electors,” the memo reads, as reported by ABC.
Clark now works for the New Civil Liberties Alliance, TPM reported on Monday, a group that, among other things, fights vaccine mandates.
He first made headlines in the weeks after the Jan. 6 insurrection, when the New York Times reported that Trump had considered replacing then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Clark.
Per the NYT, Clark also reportedly told Rosen to declare that the election had been tainted with corruption, and that Trump would install him as AG.
The emails were reportedly provided this week to the House Oversight Committee. That same panel released notes last week compiled by acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, which included notes from a phone call — one day before the draft letter, on Dec. 27 — recording Trump as telling the two officials that he was considering installing Clark as attorney general.
Clark reportedly sent the draft letter to both Rosen and Donoghue, who rejected it.
“There is no chance that I would sign this letter or anything remotely like this,” Donoghue reportedly wrote. “While it maybe true that the Department ‘is investigating various irregularities in the 2020 election for President’ (something we typically would not state publicly) the investigations that I am aware of relate to suspicions of misconduct that are of such a small scale that they simply would not impact the outcome of the Presidential Election.”
Clark also reportedly asked that then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe be permitted to deliver a briefing to DOJ leadership on “foreign election interference issues,” before referencing a theory that focused on a new source for the supposed election theft: China accessing Dominion voting machines via the internet and “through a smart thermostat with a net connection trail.”
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