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What you need to know about Jeffrey Clark’s 2020 election charges

Politics Sep 8, 2023 4:51 PM EDT

Who is indicted alongside former President Donald Trump in the Georgia election case? Meet some of his co-defendants and read more about their specific charges.

Conservative lawyer Jeffrey Clark was one of 18 people indicted alongside Trump for participating in what prosecutors describe as a wide-ranging effort to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

Clark is also believed to be one of the six co-conspirators listed in the Justice Department’s indictment of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Though Trump is the only person charged in the indictment, the other co-conspirators, who are not yet named in the indictment, could still face charges.

What charges does Clark face in Georgia?

Clark was charged on two counts:

Violation of the Georgia RICO act
Criminal attempt to commit false statements and writings

What does the Fulton County indictment allege?

The indictment focuses on two attempts by Clark to send a document he wrote to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives David Ralston, and President Pro Tempore of the Georgia Senate Butch Miller after the 2020 election.

Clark first emailed Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Acting Assistant Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue on Dec. 28, 2020, asking for permission to notify the Georgia officials that the Department of Justice had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia,” a claim that was untrue. Five days later, he met Rosen and Donoghue and repeated the request in person, the indictment alleges.

Prosecutors said the attempts to send those false statements also constitute a violation of the RICO act, alleging they were part of the broader conspiracy to overturn the election. The indictment also identified a 63-minute phone call about the presidential election between Clark and Scott Graham Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, as part of the conspiracy, but did not include the details of the call.

What is Clark’s connection to Trump?

Trump nominated Clark as assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division in 2017, and he was confirmed more than a year later in a contentious 52-45 vote. In Sept. 2020, Trump nominated Clark for acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division. In that role, Clark tried unsuccessfully to have the Justice Department defend Trump in a defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, whom Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing in the 1990s by a jury this year.

After Trump’s loss, Clark was one of the few Department of Justice lawyers who joined the efforts to overturn the election, according to witness testimony at hearings by the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

But Rosen and Donoghue, Clark’s superiors, told Clark that he shouldn’t be communicating with anyone at the White House, let alone the president. Still, Clark continued to speak with Trump, who had told the lawyer that he would replace Rosen as acting attorney general.

At a hearing, the House committee showed White House call logs on Jan. 3 that already referred to Clark as “Acting Attorney General.” Trump ultimately decided not to fire Rosen.

What did Clark do before working for Trump?

Clark was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Harvard University in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and history, according to his biography on the Justice Department’s website.

He got a master’s degree in urban affairs and public policy from the Biden School of Public Policy and Administration at the University of Delaware in 1993 and his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1995.

After graduating, Clark clerked for Judge Danny Boggs, a judge in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. In 1996, Clark joined Kirkland & Ellis, a private law firm.

In 2001, Clark joined President George W. Bush’s Justice Department as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Environment and Natural Resources Division, where he worked until 2005. That year, he returned to Kirkland & Ellis as a partner, where he represented BP in lawsuits stemming from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

He was a regular contributor at the Federalist Society, a conservative legal network where he often argued against environmental regulation and once called the Environmental Protection Agency “too big, bloated on stimulus money and, it seems, hellbent on expansion.”

What does the federal indictment allege about Clark?

There are six co-conspirators discussed in the federal indictment following the investigation by special counsel Jack Smith. Clark is believed to be “co-conspirator 4,” based on the descriptions provided by prosecutors.

WATCH: Trump indicted on federal charges in Jan. 6 case, Special Counsel Jack Smith announces

In the indictment, Smith describes co-conspirator 4 as “a Justice Department official who worked on civil matters and who, with the Defendant, attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.”

The indictment appears to lay out much of what was already unearthed during the Jan. 6 hearings, alleging Clark’s unsanctioned contact with Trump. It also details how he tried to persuade Rosen and Donoghue to sign and send a letter from the Justice Department to Georgia officials, first falsely alleging the department had “concerns” about the election, then later editing the letter to say the department had “evidence of significant irregularities.”

It also alleges Clark accepted Trump’s offer to become acting attorney general and that, during a meeting with Rosen, Donaghue, Trump and others, he suggested the Justice Department should publicly say that former Vice President Mike Pence had the power to refuse to certify the results of the election. However, like the other five co-conspirators, the federal indictment does not charge Clark with any crimes.