A top Trump Justice Department official who aided the former president’s quest to overturn the 2020 election refused to answer substantive questions in a meeting with congressional investigators on Friday.
The former official, Jeffrey Clark, instead delivered a 12-page letter from his attorney — a lawyer who worked on a post-election lawsuit aimed at overturning the results in Georgia — defending his refusal to testify.
The attorney, Harry MacDougald, wrote that Clark intended to wait at least until courts resolve Trump’s own lawsuit challenging the Jan. 6 select committee’s access to his White House records.
The Jan. 6 panel’s chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), told POLITICO that Clark’s refusal to testify could lead to a referral to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress.
“That’s on the table,” Thompson said. The committee has voted to hold just one other witness, former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, in contempt. That referral, which the full House passed last month, is pending before the Justice Department.
Clark’s letter is unusual and surprising. To make the case that Clark cannot testify to the Jan. 6 committee, it cites a separate letter in which Trump’s lawyer specifically said the former president would not try to block Clark’s congressional testimony.