Explosive details released at the January 6 hearing reveal how the United States has approached an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
Author's article:
The Washington Post
Michael Kranish and Rosalind S. The Washington Post
Deputy Deputy Attorney General Richard Trump One night in December 2020, Donald's choice, I called him at home and heard the US president once again claim that the just-lost election was full of fraud.
He reached for his wife's nightstand, picked up a pad and pen, took accurate notes, and scribbled in loose cursive as Trump spoke. Did. R with me. To a member of the Diet.
On Thursday, the same handwritten note flashed on an oversized video panel in the hearing room before the House of Representatives investigated the attack on the US Capitol on January 6.
Donohue and two other former Attorney Generals also confronted the President at an explosive meeting in the Oval Office, along with Deputy Attorney General and Trump's own White House adviser. I told the committee in great detail about this. January 3, 2021. The
meeting was centered around a plan by mid-level Attorney General Jeffrey Clark to become the Attorney General. New details released at the hearing revealed how close the Justice Department was to collapse and put the country in an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
Some of these details work in parallel with another judicial official, Clark, on behalf of Trump to push the state to overturn the election. There may be a link with John Eastman, a conservative lawyer. And the White House phone records that at some point Clark was listed as a lawyer's deputy, showing how close he was to that position.
Many of the dramatic testimonies of this Washington summer afternoon were already detailed in drywall and previously published court documents. But these details, delivered in raw sentiment on Tuesday, appear to be still shocked and despised by some of Trump's former top aides screaming his falsehood about the election and what they witnessed. I heard it, so I landed with new gravity.
In a series of striking moments aired nationwide to millions of people, abominable testimony from the country's highest law enforcement authorities unfolds half a century of investigation. Before the Watergate scandal, which was the closest thing to coming to the event.
Instead of the White House tape, there were handwritten notes and wall-hit testimony about the Oval Office conversation by Donohue, former deputy lawyer Jeffrey Rosen, and others. Instead of warning that President Richard Nixon's White House adviser "has cancer in his presidency," Trump White House adviser Pat Chiporon said the effort to overturn the election was like a "murder suicide agreement." There was a report. Affects everyone involved.
And in response to the way Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" led to the resignation of his Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, Donohue gave Trump hundreds of justice. A ministry official replaced his Attorney General with a mid-career official who vowed to pursue Trump's allegations.
"Suppose I do this. Let's say I replaced his Jeff Rosen with Jeff Clark. What would you do?" Donohue recalled Trump asking him. "And I said. President, we will resign soon. I haven't worked for a minute for this guy I just declared incompetent. I once oversaw an environmental proceeding.
After William Barr resigned as Attorney General in late December 2020, he replaced Rosen. Rosen, along with his deputy Donohue, told them that the election was wrong. When Rosen and Donohue checked all the claims and told Trump that they were all unfounded, Trump gave Rosen. He began to focus on whether to replace the lesser-known Clark.
Clark formed an alliance with Republican Rep. Scott Perry, who arranged a meeting with Trump at the White House. The meeting displayed a text from Perry to White House Attorney General Mark Meadows stating that Perry said: I just hung up with him, "Clark needs more authority. I explained that it was. Perry then sent a text message to Meadows saying, "I sent something with Signal," an app that sends encrypted messages.
He was fine when Rosen learned that Clark had met Trump. Rosen testified that he believed that Clark would never meet Trump again, but he did, despite the testimony that Rosen and Donohue told him not to do so.
The Commission outlined how Trump's request to the Justice Department became strange. On New Year's Eve, a former Justice Department official testified, they were summoned to a meeting with Trump, who rushed back to Washington from his vacation at Florida's real estate Mar-a-Lago.
During the meeting, Donohue repeatedly said that a special counsel was not needed by Justice Department officials, but Trump testified that he wanted to appoint a special counsel to investigate the election. Then Trump turned his attention to the voting machine. "There was a time when the president said something about why he didn't see these machines," Donohue testified.
The judiciary explained that it was not authorized to seize the voting machine. As confirmed by Trump's own Department of Homeland Security, there was no evidence that the voting machine had a problem.
Later, Trump called Ken Cuccinelli, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary of DHS, and misrepresented that the Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary had just said that it was Cuccinelli's job to seize the voting machine.
The next day, January 1, Meadows sent Rosen an increasingly desperate series of emails. For one, Rosen proposed sending Clark to Georgia to oversee the election affairs there. In another example, Meadows asked Rosen to investigate the strange theory that an Italian defense contractor used satellites to reverse the vote from Trump to Biden.
The Commission has revealed that Meadows learned of an unfounded conspiracy theory from Perry, who sent a text message to Meadows on December 31st.
Rosen did not meet the man who was advancing the theory that he testified to Meadows, or Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who stated that Meadows was also interested in the Italian conspiracy. .. "Pure Madness" Rosen sent an email to Donohue about the pressures of the time.
Rosen testified that he thought his refusal had put an end to the problem.
Instead, Donohue testified that he had received a call from Pentagon official Kash Patel on the issue. The Commission played a recorded testimony from former Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, confirming that he also made a call for a strange conspiracy theory. Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger said the commission confirmed that Miller had called the Italian attaché to ask about the allegations.
Meanwhile, Clark was thinking of sending a letter to the major states urging Congress to take steps that could overturn the election. The letter "identifies serious concerns" about the vote by the Justice Department, and the state considers sending "another slate of voters in favor of Donald J. Trump" for Congress to approve. Said it should be.
The draft letter was sent to Clark by the recently arrived judicial official Ken Kurkovski. Republican Vice-Chairman Liz Cheney said Thursday that Kurkowski was assigned to "work under Jeffrey Clark" and helped draft a letter to major states. "We also worked with John Eastman," Trump's legal adviser, who was involved in other plans to overturn the election, Mr. Cheney said. Chainy said the letter reflected some of Eastman's theory. Two sources said Klukowski had cooperated with the committee, but did not release his testimony. His lawyer declined to comment on Thursday night. Eastman and his lawyer could not be contacted.
At the bottom of the letter was a place to sign not only Clark, but also Rosen and Donohue. The two Supreme Judicial Officials were indignant and said Clark had no such evidence and they would never sign the letter. They thought the problem was dead.
Donohue told the Commission that at some point what he was doing to Clark "has significant consequences for the country," "he understands the significance of the situation." I wanted to make sure that I'm really grateful. "
Clark stuck to his efforts to beat Trump, who was enthusiastic about the idea.
By January 3, 2020, Trump was fed up with Rosen and Donohue and told Clark to prepare to be appointed Attorney General. Phone records released by the Commission on Thursday show that Clark seemed to take over the Justice Department, so he called the White House four times that day.
At 7:07 am and 7:38 am, the log says "Mr. Jeffrey Clark." Again at 1:13 pm, the log says "Mr. Jeffrey." Clerk.
However, when Clark called again at 4:19 pm, the logs were displayed differently. This time, Clark was recorded as "Jeffrey Clark's Deputy Attorney." The log details provided an impressive window of how close the country was to Trump in carrying out his plans.
In fact, Rosen was neither resigned nor banished at the time. Instead, he requested a meeting with Trump, rather than simply agreeing to resign at Clark's request. Rosen was walking through the muddy National Mall, calling Donohue, who was still wearing an Army T-shirt, and rushed into the Oval Office.
For two and a half hours, Trump met with lawyers from Clark, Rosen, Donohue, and the White House. Clark tells the president "History is calling" and "This is our opportunity. According to previous testimony, we can accomplish this.
Rosen and Donohue are justice. He warned that there would be a large number of resignations in the province and testified that he had relentlessly pushed back. Donohue told Trump in some of the previously recorded testimony that Clark did not even have the ability to serve as Attorney General. I remembered that he was not a criminal lawyer. He has never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. "
Clark sent an environmental lawsuit that sent Donohue's stinging reunion. He argued that he did something like this.
"Yes. You are an environmental lawyer. Go back to the office and call if there is an oil spill."
Testify in a recorded video Eric Hirschman, a lawyer at the White House, offered a new account and said: He thought Clark's proposal was "nuts," so when Clark discussed the plan, he told Clark: "Congratulations. You just admitted that your first step or action as Attorney General commits a felony," ironically added, "you are clearly the right candidate for this job."
Ultimately, Trump was convinced that putting Clark at the top of the Justice Department would lead to a mass resignation.
As committee members said, actions such as Rosen and Donohue showed the value of high-ranking government officials to more than just pledge allegiance to one person, the president. Instead, they went against the president and told the public on Thursday about them.
Clark has adopted the Fifth Amendment and refused to address many of the Commission's questions. His house was attacked by law enforcement officers on Wednesday.
Clark, who appeared at Tucker Carlson's Fox News show on Thursday night, said he was told by an armed agent to leave his house in his pajamas. Something like a stasi is happening. He said it was not a coincidence that the attack took place shortly before the hearing.
The Commission then set the stage for the next chapter of the story, and three days later, what happened when the mob broke into the Capitol and waited hours for the president to intervene. We will consider whether or not in future hearings. Shout Trump's name.
"I'll show you now," said Democratic Party Chairman Bennie Thompson. Corruption and political pressure prevented Donald Trump from staying in power, making violence the last option.
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