By Maureen Chowdhury, Elise Hammond, Adrienne Vogt and Meg Wagner, CNN
Richard Donoghue, former deputy attorney general, is now testifying before the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Donoghue has previously spoken with the committee behind closed doors, along with former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, about former President Donald Trump's pressure campaign against top Justice Department officials to investigate baseless claims of election fraud prior to Jan. 6, 2021.
From CNN's Marshall Cohen
Top Justice Department and White House officials eviscerated Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark during a high-stakes Oval Office meeting in early January 2021, where then-President Donald Trump considered installing Clark as attorney general so he could use the powers of the Justice Department to overturn the 2020 election.
“I made the point that Jeff Clark is not even competent to serve as the attorney general. He’s never 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,” former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue said in a video deposition clip that was played Thursday, recalling what he told Trump during the critical Oval Office meeting.
Donoghue said he told Clark, “You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.”
Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said Clark was repeatedly “clobbered over the head” during the meeting. He said that he explicitly told Clark that he was breaking the law, according to his videotaped deposition with the committee, a clip of which was played on Thursday.
“f*cking a-hole, congratulations, you just admitted your first step or act you would take as attorney general would be committing a felony,” Herschmann said.
Herschmann later testified that he thought Clark’s plan was “nuts” and told the panel that he told Clark, “the best I can tell is the only thing you know about environmental and election challenges it they both start with E. And based on your answers tonight, I’m not even certain you know that.”
According to Donoghue, then-White House Counsel Pat Cipollone said during the meeting that Clark’s plan to send letters to battleground states, encouraging them to interfere with the election results, was a “murder-suicide pact.”
During the Oval Office meeting, these officials pummeled Clark’s ideas, even as he kept trying to explain to Trump that he would uncover widespread fraud if he was put in charge of the Justice Department. These officials successfully persuaded Trump to back away from the plan to fire then-Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and promote Clark.
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger outlined the goal of today's Jan. 6 House select committee hearing: “Today, President Trump’s total disregard for the Constitution and his oath will be fully exposed.”
Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the committee, also made an appeal to both sides of the aisle.
"I want to take a moment now to speak directly to my fellow Republicans. Imagine the country's top prosecutor — with the power to open investigations, subpoena, charge crimes and seek imprisonment — imagine that official pursuing the agenda of the other party instead of that of the American people as a whole. And if you're a Democrat, imagine it the other way around," he said.
Watch:
From CNN's Katelyn Polantz
White House lawyer Eric Herschmann told the committee he reacted so strongly to top DOJ official Jeffrey Clark’s plans to use the department to investigate former President Donald Trump’s election lies that Herschmann called him a "f*cking a-hole" who was proposing to violate the law if he became attorney general.
"When he finished discussing what he planned on doing, I said, good f*cking a-hole, congratulations, you just admitted your first step or act you would take as attorney general would be committing a felony" by violating grand jury secrecy rules, Herschmann said in a videotaped deposition played during Thursday’s hearing. "You're clearly the right candidate for this job," Herschmann said.
The comments from Herschmann — who's become one of the most colorful commentators whose quips the committee keeps showing — were presented near the start of Thursday's public hearing, about how Clark from within DOJ sought to help Trump challenge the 2020 election.
The committee did not provide additional context about what Clark had proposed to elicit Herschmann's sarcasm, but the exchange came as Clark was making a run at becoming Trump's acting attorney general.
Other top White House and Justice officials in the room with Clark opposed him taking over the department. They told Trump that if he had installed Clark, there would be mass resignations across DOJ.
Committee vice chair Rep. Liz Cheney said a key focus of the hearing today will be a draft letter written by Jeffrey Clark, then the department's top energy lawyer who had pushed Trump's fraud claims.
The letter was intended to be sent to the Georgia state legislature, Cheney said, adding other versions of the letter would also go to other states despite Clark having any evidence of the election fraud he was claiming.
"But they were quite aware of what Mr. Trump wanted the department to do," Cheney said.
The draft of the letter, as shown by the committee, claims the Department of Justice investigations have "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the State of Georgia."
The letter recommended Georgia convene a special session and consider approving a new slate of electors.
"In fact, Donald Trump knew this was a lie. The Department of Justice had informed the President of the United States, repeatedly, that its investigations had found no fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the 2020 election," Cheney said.
In addition to Clark's signature, there was also a place for the acting attorney general and the acting deputy attorney general to sign, according to exhibits shown by the committee.
Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general at the time, and Richard Donoghue, the acting deputy attorney general, refused to sign the letter, Cheney said.
Both Rosen and Donoghue are testifying at the hearing on Thursday.
"This would be a grave step for the department to take," Donoghue wrote when he saw the letter, according to Cheney.
"Jeff Clark met privately with President Trump and others in the White House and agreed to assist the President without telling the senior leadership in the department who oversaw him," Cheney said.
Some background: Trump's push to get the Justice Department to verify his false election claims began what was a tumultuous period at the department in the lead-up to Jan. 6, 2021. When Rosen and Donoghue resisted these pushes from Trump and his allies, the then-President considered replacing Rosen with Clark.
The DOJ officials, along with lawyers in the White House counsel's office, took part in a dramatic Jan. 3, 2021, meeting in the Oval Office with Clark and Rosen present, where Trump ultimately backed away from his plan to install Clark as the head of the Justice Department — after Rosen, Donoghue and Engel had threatened to resign in protest.
From CNN's Whitney Wild, Jeremy Herb, Lauren Fox, Zachary Cohen, Ryan Nobles and Evan Perez
Former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen is now testifying at today's hearing.
Rosen and his then-deputy Richard Donoghue — who is also testifying — previously spoke with the committee behind closed doors about former President Donald Trump's pressure campaign against top Justice Department officials prior to Jan. 6, 2021.
The committee is expected to discuss how Trump and his allies pressured Rosen to consider false allegations that the 2020 election had been stolen at the same time Rosen was being elevated to lead the Justice Department in December 2020. Trump was replacing Attorney General William Barr — who had publicly said there wasn't evidence of widespread voter fraud — with Rosen.
Emails from the Justice Department and White House officials show how Trump directed his team to push Rosen to join the legal effort to challenge the election result. CNN also reported that Trump wanted the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to look into his false allegations of vote fraud and discussed having the department appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, son of incoming President Biden.
Amid the pressure, Rosen said he refused to speak to Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani about his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
"I flatly refused, said I would not be giving any special treatment to Giuliani or any of his 'witnesses,' and re-affirmed yet again that I will not talk to Giuliani about any of this," Rosen wrote to Donoghue in the emails.
By the end of the year, it was clear Rosen and Donoghue had tired of the pressure campaign from the White House.
In an email on Jan. 1, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows says there were "allegations of signature match anomalies" in Fulton County, Georgia, asking Rosen to have a Justice Department official "engage on this issue immediately to determine if there is any truth to this allegation."
Rosen forwarded the email to Donoghue later that day, saying: "Can you believe this? I am not going to respond to the message below."
He has also spoken out about the attack on the US Capitol and has helped to oversee the federal law enforcement response to secure the inauguration.
From CNN's Evan Perez
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, is presenting evidence on Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department lawyer who former President Donald Trump sought to install as attorney general in the days before the riot.
Federal investigators conducted a search Wednesday of the home of Clark, sources briefed on the matter told CNN.
Clark was at the center of an effort by Trump to get the Justice Department to falsely claim there was enough vote fraud in Georgia and other states that he lost, in a last-minute bid to help sow doubt about Joe Biden’s victory and pave the way for him to remain in power.
A spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office in Washington confirmed that “there was law enforcement activity in the vicinity” of Clark’s home but declined to comment on any particular person or activity.
Attorneys for Clark didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Some background: After Jeffrey Rosen was named acting attorney general in December 2020 following the resignation of William Barr — who had publicly said the Justice Department did not uncover substantial evidence of voter fraud — Trump and his allies began pressuring Rosen over the fraud claims.
Trump's push began what was a tumultuous period at the Justice Department in the lead-up to Jan. 6, 2021, when he considered replacing Rosen with Clark, then the department's top energy lawyer.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republican members of the House select committee, outlined how former Department of Justice officials, who are testifying today "stood firm" against a "presidential pressure campaign" from former President Donald Trump and his allies.
"Presidential pressure can be really hard to resist," Kinzinger said during his opening remarks. "Today we will focus on a few officials who stirred firm against President Trump's political pressure campaign. When the President tried to misuse the department and install a loyalist at its helm, these brave officials refused and threatened to resign. They were willing to sacrifice their careers for the good of our country," he said.
Kinzinger went on to discuss how the DOJ is a "unique" part of the executive branch of government, since the President oversees the department but "must not shape or dictate the department's actions" or serve the President's personal interests.
The Republican congressman said that during the hearing, the witnesses will layout how Trump repeatedly requested "to investigate claims of widespread fraud" and how they stood firm against him.
Watch:
Rep. Bennie Thompson, the chair of the Jan. 6 House select committee investigating the 2021 attack on the US Capitol, said former President Trump wanted the Department of Justice to "legitimize" his election lies.
"Donald Trump didn't just want the Justice Department to investigate; he wanted the Justice Department to help legitimize his lies, to baselessly call the election corrupt," Thompson said in the hearing's opening remarks.
Those testifying today resisted Trump's pressure campaign, he said.
"It was a brazen attempt to use the Justice Department to advance the President's personal political agenda," Thompson said.
Watch:
