New details in The Washington Post on the DOJ dimension of the plot to overturn the Electoral College outcome. An excerpt:
‘Around the time Donoghue entered, Clark was telling Trump that if he became attorney general he would “conduct real investigations that would, in his view, uncover widespread fraud,” Donoghue said in his House deposition. Clark vowed to send the letter he drafted to Georgia and other states and said that “this was a last opportunity to sort of set things straight with this defective election, and that he could do it, and he had the intelligence and the will and the desire to pursue these matters in the way that the president thought most appropriate.”
Everyone else in the room told Trump they opposed Clark, Donoghue said.
Trump repeatedly went after Rosen and Donoghue, saying they hadn’t pursued voter fraud allegations.
“You two,” Trump said, pointing to the two top Justice Department officials. “You two haven’t done anything. You two don’t care. You haven’t taken appropriate actions. Everyone tells me I should fire you.”
Trump continually circled back to the idea of replacing Rosen with Clark.
“What do I have to lose?” the president asked, according to Donoghue.
“Mr. President, you have a great deal to lose,” Donoghue said he responded. “Is this really how you want your administration to end? You’re going to hurt the country, you’re going to hurt the department, you’re going to hurt yourself, with people grasping at straws on these desperate theories about election fraud, and is this really in anyone’s best interest?”
Donoghue warned Trump that putting Clark in charge would be likely to lead to mass resignations at the Justice Department.
“Well, suppose I do this,” Trump said to Donoghue. “Suppose I replace [Rosen] with [Clark], what would you do?”
“Sir, I would resign immediately,” Donoghue said he responded. “There’s no way I’m serving under this guy [Clark].”
Trump then turned to Steve Engel, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, whom Trump reportedly had considered for a seat on the Supreme Court.
“Steve, you wouldn’t resign, would you?” Trump asked.
“Absolutely I would, Mr. President. You’d leave me no choice,” Engel responded, according to Donoghue’s account. Engel declined to comment.
“And we’re not the only ones,” Donoghue said he told Trump. “You should understand that your entire department leadership will resign. Every [assistant attorney general] will resign. … Mr. President, these aren’t bureaucratic leftovers from another administration. You picked them. This is your leadership team. You sent every one of them to the Senate; you got them confirmed. What is that going to say about you, when we all walk out at the same time?”’
Another perhaps even more significant excerpt concerning the effort to pressure Pence:
‘Clark had yet another idea. He asked whether Engel could provide a formal opinion about what authority Vice President Mike Pence had “when it comes to opening the votes” of theelectoral college result on Jan. 6, according to an excerpt of Engel’s deposition in a recent court filing.
“That’s an absurd idea,” Engel said he responded, asserting it wasn’t the job of the Justice Department and noting only three days remained before Pence would perform his role. Trump interjected that he didn’t want anyone attending the meeting to talk to Pence about what to do on Jan. 6.
“Nobody should be talking to the vice president here,” Trump said, according to Engel. Instead, Trump would soon do that himself in an attempt to convince the vice president not to certify Biden’s election.’