![]() In the four-paragraph letter she sent to Justice Department attorneys on Monday, Yates took care to note the specific duties she had in her acting role and how the DOJ’s responsibilities differ from other legal offices in government. She played her position, attending to the interests she was charged to protect in her role as attorney general. In addition to assessing the situation through the lens of law, she cited the obligations of her duties in her dissenting memo to Department of Justice attorneys. Yates has shown us what ethical leadership looks like. It’s a wake up call from Yates to Congress to do its job. And our nation’s now-fired top attorney, acting attorney general Sally Yates, played her political trump card to avoid upholding laws that are leading to unethical acts. ![]() The president, a businessman by training and experience, is using laws to their fullest extent to fulfill his campaign promises. Irony has been in abundance during week one of the Trump administration. Clark’s home was searched by federal agents shortly before a committee hearing in which he was the focus.This article was originally published in MarketWatch on January 31, 2017. Three other former Justice Department officials testified about an extraordinary Jan. 3, 2021, Oval Office meeting at which Trump contemplated naming Clark - who led the department’s civil division - as acting attorney general in place of Jeffrey Rosen, who resisted Trump’s efforts to involve the agency. Russ Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America, which Clark recently joined as a senior fellow, tweeted that federal officers forced Clark “into the streets” while he was wearing pajamas and “took his electronic devices.” Trump relented only when other senior Justice Department officials warned Trump that they would resign if he followed through with his plan to replace Rosen with Clark.Ī lawyer for Clark did not return an email and phone message seeking comment. We stand by Jeff and so must all patriots in this country.” “All because Jeff saw fit to investigate voter fraud,” Vought continued. The House committee and the Justice Department have worked separately but had some public friction. The committee originally rejected Justice Department requests for access to its transcripts, which include interviews with Trump family members, top officials, and key supporters. Key deputies to Attorney General Merrick Garland renewed their request last week in a letter to the committee.Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters. #FORMER ACTING ATTORNEY TRUMPS EFFORTS SUBVERT FREE# On Wednesday, the House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol voted to pursue criminal contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who schemed with Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election results. ![]() Clark had refused to cooperate with the committee’s inquiry, citing Trump’s legal efforts to block its probe. Yet before officially requesting the Justice Department to prosecute Clark, the committee did offer him one more chance and asked that he come in for a deposition on Saturday. And Clark has agreed to sit down with the panel. But there’s a catch: his lawyer has indicated he will plead the Fifth Amendment and not answer certain questions.Īfter the election, Clark, the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division (who had no authority over election issues), schemed with Trump and pressed top department officials to falsely state that its fraud investigations had cast doubt on the election results. When acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen resisted this pressure, Trump considered firing him and appointing Clark as acting attorney general so he could carry out the plot. In a worse-than-Watergate moment, Trump also directly leaned on Rosen and his top deputy, Richard Donaghue, to declare the 2020 election corrupt, though the Justice Department had found no instances of consequential fraud. ![]() #FORMER ACTING ATTORNEY TRUMPS EFFORTS SUBVERT FREE#Īnd when Donoghue told Trump that the department could not undo the election results, Trump said, according to the notes Donoghue took, “Just say that the election was corrupt leave the rest to me and the R congressmen.” (R stands for Republican.)Ĭlark is a key witness in the 1/6 committee’s investigation.
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