the secretary stated and the five million that was on a public facing website was that the information on the website was incomplete because four kuntys had not uploaded their data. >> so no credibility? >> zero to that. >> during that call, did scott perry mentioned mr. clark and what did he say about him if so? >> he mentioned mr. clark. he said something to the effect of i think jeff clark is great and i think he's the kind of guy that can get in there and do something about this stuff. this is coming on the heels of the president having mentioned mr. clark in the afternoon call earlier that day. >> i'd like to yield to the gentle woman from wyoming, vice chair cheney. >> as we discussed at the center of mr. clark's plan to undue the

president's election law was a letter. mr. clark e-mailed you and a draft letter he wanted you to sign and to send to georgia state fishes. you testified that this could have grave constitutional consequences. mr. donahue, can you tell us what you meant by that? >> well, i had to read both the e-mail and the attached letter twice to make sure that i really understood what he was proposing because it was so extreme to me, i had a hard time getting my head around it initially. i read it. i understood it for what he intended. i had to sit down and compose what i thought was an appropriate response. i initially went next door to the acting a.g.'s office but he was not there. we were both on the e-mail. i knew we would have a similar reaction to it. he was not in his office. i returned and sat down to draft a response. i thought it was important to give a prompt response rejecting

this out of hand. there were -- in my response, i explained a number of reasons that i thought this was not the department's role to suggest or dictate to state legislatures how they should select their electors and more importantly, it was not based on facts. it was contrary to facts departmented by investigations over the last weeks and months. i responded to that. for the department to insert itself in to the police call process this way i think would have had grave consequences for the country and could have spiralled us to a constitutional crisis and i wanted to make sure that he understood. he didn't really appreciate it. >> what was mr. clark's reaction when you sent this e-mail to him? >> he didn't respond to the e-mail. we met shortly after that, after i sent the e-mail. the acting a.g. returned. i went to his office. he had just read it. he had a very similar reaction

to me. he was exasperated and he said that he told one of his administrative assistances to get jeff clark up here. we wanted to talk to him face to face about this. the three of us had a meeting probably around 1,800 in the deputy attorney general's conference room. >> one of the things that you said to mr. clark is "what you're doing is nothing less than the united states justice department meddling in the outcome of a presidential election. i assume you conveyeded that to him? >> in those very word. it was a very contentious meeting. yes, that was said amongst other things. >> and despite this contentious meeting and your reaction to the letter, did mr. clark continue to push his concept in the coming days? >> he did, yes. we had subsequent meetings and conversations. the acting a.g. probably had nor contact with him than i did. between the 28th and the 2nd

when we had another in-person meeting, he continued to move down this path. he began calling witnesses and apparently conducting investigations of his own. and he got a briefing from dni about purported foreign intelligence interference. when we thought there was no basis for that part of his concern, that he would retreat. instead he doubled down and be said okay, there's no foreign interference. there's enough allegations out there that we should send this letter. you'd think after a couple of days of this, why would come to the same conclusion, that it was unfounded. >> when he conducted investigations on his own, did you confront him? >> yes. >> what was his reaction?

>> he got very defensive. there were a series of conversations. i remember the conversation and the meeting on january 2. that got even more confrontational. he was defensive and you know, similar to his earlier reaction when i said this is nothing less than justice department meddling in an election. his reaction was this way. he clung to that. spewed out some of these theories, some of which we heard from the president and those floating around the internet and media an insisting that the department needed to act and needed to send those letters. >> the committee has learned that mr. clark was working with another attorney named ken klukowski who drafted this letter to georgia with mr. clark. mr. klukowski had arrived at the department on december 15 with just 36 kays left until the

inauguration. he was specifically assigned to work under jeff clark. mr. klukowski also worked with john eastman who we showed you at our hearing last week was one of the primary architects of president trump's scheme to overturn the election. the georgia letter that we've been discussing specifically talks about some of dr. eastman's theories including "the purpose of the special session that the department recommends would be for the general assembly to determine whether the election failed to make a proper and valid choice between the candidates. such as a general assembly could take whatever action is necessary to ensure that one of the slates of electors cast on december 14 will be accepted by congress on january 6. the committee learned that the relationship between dr. eastman and mr. klukowski persisted after mr. klukowski joined the justice department. let's take a look at an e-mail recommending that mr. klukowski

and dr. eastman brief vice president pence and his staff. are the recipients of this e-mail including chief of staff to louis gohmert and the e-mail says as stated last week, i believe the vice president and his staff would benefit greatly from a briefing by john and ken. as i also mentioned, we want to make sure that we don't overexpose ken given his new position. this e-mail suggests that mr. klukowski was working with jeffery clark to draft the proposed letter to georgia officials to overturn their certified election and working with dr. eastman to help the haven't to overturn the election. i want to thank our witnesses for being here today and to answer questions about this letter and other issues. we asked the same questions to mr. clark. here's how he answered. >> did you discuss this draft letter to georgia officials with

the president of the united states? >> i assert executive privilege. just restate it nor the abundance of caution. >> if you looked at these draft letters in the first paragraph, second sentence says the department will update you as we're able on investigatory progress but at the time we identified significant concerns that my have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including state of georgia. isn't that in fact contrary to what attorney general barr had said? >> yes. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. chairman, i reserve. >> pursuant to the orreder of the committee of today, the chair declares the committee in recess for a period of ten minutes. >> neil: all right. you're watching the fifth

hearing this month, the sixth in all the you count the last opening hearing back last july almost a year ago from the january 6th committee. this one focusing on how president trump at the time tried to manipulate the justice department. as one of the witnesses said, to do his bidding on a rigged election and whether that -- forcing that view was in itself pressuring justice department officials to go along with president trump's argument at the time that the election was rigged and that votes were stolen and to -- again, these are former top justice department officials who were going back and forth with the president at the time to say there was no there there. there was no ill legality being committed here and they couldn't sign on to what got up to be ramped up pressure on mr. trump to replace the acting attorney general. but those in the room would not go along with those plans.

just some of the inkling of material and information we're getting from this hearing right now as we're learning that there could be an expanded sort of examination of a tik tok on exactly what was transpiring long before january 6. so welcome, everybody. i'm neil cavuto. this is "your world." briefly taking a break in these hearings and the impact of what we've heard, bret baier is with us, the "special report" host and we have andy mccarthy, fox news contributorer contributor to the u.s. attorney. jonathan turley as well. the g.w. law professor. jonathan, you have a damning tick tok on all of these gentlemen in a position of trying to answer a president who was saying what was going on was unfair and he wanted the justice department to get involved to pursue this and they did not.

i'm wondering your take on these revelations. some are not new. maybe just the tone and timing -- >> hi. this is andy. are you talking to me? >> neil: andy, go ahead. maybe you're having trouble hearing me. jonathan, the significance of what you heard thus far. >> well, it is significant. as you know, it's more of an amplification than what we knew of before the hearings. we knew there were the confrontations. it's very disturbing. the letter that was drafted for the state legislatures was wildly inappropriate. these attorneys did the right thing in many respects we can take pride in the fact that so many consistently held firm and said this is not a role for the department of justice. what is also interesting is to

get the details on how they did look into the allegations. you know, part of the message we got from former president trump is that nobody is looking into this. these were lawyers that were going to them and saying we did. we went and looked at what was on the truck in this one allegation. it's not true. it's not panning out. that does add details what is missing again unfortunately is any other sides. the fact that this is not a balanced committee is a real shame. because you know, this is powerful stuff. these are very credible individuals. having someone there to ask probing questions rather than scripted questions i think would have added greater authenticity and power to this hearing. >> neil: indeed. president trump said the same thing, bret baier, that that was a bungle by kevin mccarthy to shut that down or to get republicans on that committee that were not kinzinger or

certainly cheney. but i'm wondering what you think of the impact of these statements that your hearing, bret. this has been out there. the december 27th called that the president said just said the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me. what did you make of that? >> yeah, that's from richard donoghue, the trump administration, doj official. remember, all of these people served at the pleasure of the president in his administration at doj. donoghue saying that he took clear notice of that call and just say it was corrupt, leave the rest to me and the gop congress, this is after that presentation that jonathan talked about where they methodically went through and said yes, there's small instances of fraud, irregularities, but none of them according to all of these officials, according to rosen, none of them reached the level

of overturning any single state to change the outcome of the election. we've been through some of this. to lay it out like this is different. they're making the case obviously pointed at the former president, donald trump. i think it's interesting that federal agents searched the home of jeffery clark just yesterday. we're now, neil, 536 days after that meeting where there's this implication that clark will be inserted as the head of doj, as the acting attorney general and there's this push back and resignations that they say will happen. why is it that long? why is it time to this hearing? maybe andy and jonathan know that. >> neil: to we know what the they're looking for? >> we do. we have rush vaught, a colleague who put out a tweet saying that

he's at the center for renewing america saying yesterday more than a dozen doj law enforcement officials searched jeff clark's house in a predawn raid, put him in the streets and took his electronic devices because jeff saw fit to investigate voter fraud. this is not america, folks. there's a different portrayal of jeff clark and his role and not just looking at voter fraud but maybe trying to change the direction of what the doj was doing sat that moment. >> neil: you know, andy, i hope you can hear me now. >> i can. yes. >> neil: there's a lot of similarities here. i know it's night and day, between the pressure on justice department officials, these officials and the sort of, you know, saturday night massacre that we remember in the nixon administration when he was trying to get someone at least to do his bidding in the white house. this is a different beast, i grant you. you get the feeling of this

committee that they can't make criminal charges of its own. that's where it wants to go. maybe recommend such action on the part of the justice department. we're a long way from there. but these examples and these citings and these conversations, if they are what they appear to be, are they the stuff of which criminal charges can be made? >> well, it's certainly possible, neil. i've always thought and continue to think that this process is a proxy for the investigation that they failed to do 17 months ago in connection with the post january 6 impeachment. i think that continues to be borne out. they're suggesting the criminal justice system as a substitute, i would say a poor substitute for that. they basically want to intonight him for an impeachable offense because the time for impeaching has come and gone. if you were going to, i would think the justice department officials that were sitting at

the witness table, if they were asked about this, the little bit that happened right before the recess, i think one of the things that they would point out is that, you know, the last thing that representative cheney point out is that jeff clark took the fived when he was asked the same questions that they asked the witnesses. if a prosecutor brought that out in a trial, that would be a mistrial. that's like a basic constitutional due process violation. for the life of me, i continue not to understand not only why this committee would not present a different perspective when they have witnesses that could clearly deal with cross examination if there were cross examination. and why do this very powerful presentation, which i think this last hour certainly was, and then at the end point out that people are taking the fifth amendment which they have a constitutional entitlement to do and the courts have said if you let that infect a fact-finding

proceeding, it's a constitutional violation. i don't understand it. >> neil: they're going back very shortly, gentlemen. jonathan turley, you're hearing this back and forth about what it was like in the trump white house after the election right to and through january 6. it has a sense of desperation to it and a desperate president trying -- forcing his way in office. what do you come away with thus far? >> i think they're making a stronger case than what we knew. this is that amplification of how many people were saying the same thing that they had run count the allegations that were untrue. that is coming through. but going to andy's point, it's so scripted that they don't even have opening statements. it's so controlled that it make kabuke look like an

improvisational dance. there's no room nor the witnesses to go to the left or right. that really undermines it. it's not suggesting that these witnesses would be saying something different. it's that it would be good to have some exchanges that don't feel quite as scripted. >> neil, can i say one more thing? >> neil: sure. >> the premise from bennie thompson and liz cheney is that we were on the brink of losing or democracy. if anything, i think the testimony shows not only the arizona house speaker, all of the state officials, these officials in doj that were working for president trump

>> n them had buckled, it would be a very different -- >> 100%. >> neil: thanks, bret. we're going back to the hearings rights now. this is the fifth hearing. we're putting things up a to resume a couple weeks from now, new video, new testimony, potentially new witnesses. a lot of this is a recreation of events that we already know full well. but it's the detail of those events of whatting going on and who was talking to the president and when at a time when the president was not hearing anything of the validity of the election, just the fact that he didn't like the election results. back to the hearing.

>> the committee will be in hoarder. chair recognizes gentleman from illinois. >> thank you, mr. chairman. around the time that mr. clark was pushing for the department to send the georgia letter, the president and his supporters were pressuring the justice department to take other actions to change the outcome of the 2020 election. mr. engle, you were the head of the office of legal counsel. can you explain your role? what is that? >> sure. when the attorney general's most important responsibilities is to

provide the legal advice to the president and to the executive branch. as a practical matter given the responsibilities of the attorney general, the assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel exercises that job on a day-to-day basis. so in addition the head of aoc functions as a general counsel to the attorney generaland often the chief legal adviser to the a.g. as the white house and the executive branch more broadly. >> so given that role, can you describe your relationship with the president? >> well, i -- in connection with my role over the course of my tenure there, there were a number of instances in which folks at the white house would seek to bring me in to provide legal advice to the president. sometimes discussing the legal options that could be pursued among various policy objectives. sometimes too we advise the president as a course of action

that they were discussing was not legally available. >> i want to ask you about two things the president and the department asked you to do. the first is reflected in this e-mail that we put on the screen. the president sent a draft lawsuit to be filed by the department and the supreme court. he wanted you, mr. rosen and mr. cipollone to review it. you and the department opposed filing it. we see on the screen here that the talking points that you drafted on that. you said there's no legal basis to bring in lawsuit. anyone that thinks otherwise doesn't know the law much less the supreme court. why was this the department's position? >> i think it was -- the memo sort of speaks to this. but essentially this was a draft lawsuit that apparently was prepared by people outside the department. it would be styled as brought by the united states and the acting solicitor general as an original

jurisdiction matner the supreme court. it was a merit less document. somebody prepared it and handed it to president and forwarded it on for our review. the department of justice doesn't have any standing to bring a lawsuit. the lawsuit would have been untimely. the states had chosen their electors. they were certified, cast their votes and sent to washington d.c. neither georgia nor any of the other states december 28th whenever this was was in a position to change those votes. the election had happened. the only thing that hadn't happened is the formal counting of the votes. obviously the person that drafted this lawsuit didn't really understand the law and/or how the supreme court works or the department of justice. it was not something that we were going to do and the acting attorney general asked me to prepare a memo so he could explain our reasons when we spoke to the president about

this. >> would you say it's an unusual request? >> the request that the department file a lawsuit directed by outside lawyers is an unusual request. >> there was another issue that you were asked to. did the white house look if a special counsel could be looking at election fraud issues? >> the president was probably vocal at the time that he believed that special counsel was something that should be considered to look into election fraud. there's a specific request where the attorney general sought my advice. >> what was your conclusion? >> this request is whether the attorney general could appoint a special counsel, a state attorney general to conduct an investigation. as a legal matter, under federal law, the attorney general has fairly wide discretion to delegate prosecutorial authority

including to state prosecutors, which happens to assist the department and not uncommonly obviously a state attorney general exercising this is uncommon. we look at state law of louisiana. the state law precluded the louisiana attorney general from accepting any official position on behalf of the united states government. so that answered the question. that it was not legally available. >> during your time at the department, was there ever any basis to appoint a special counsel to investigation the president's fraud claims? >> attorney general barr or attorney general rosen did appoint a special counsel. you would appoint a special counsel when the department -- when there's a basis for an investigation and the department has a conflict of interest. it's important to get someone who is independent outside the department to handle such an investigation.

neither attorney general barr or acting attorney general rosen thought that was appropriate. >> in fact, attorney general barr told the president that there was no need for the special counsel. he said that publicly and we'll see that in this december. >> to the extent that there's an investigation, i think that it's being handled responsibly and professionally currently within the department and to this point i have not seen a reason to appoint a special counsel and i have no plan to do so before i leave. >> the december 21st was the same day that president trump met with republican members at the white house to strategize about how to overturn the election while his attorney general is out telling the public, again, that there was no widespread evidence of election fraud. yesterday two days later, we have president trump tweeting again publicly pressuring the department to appoint a special counsel. he said "after seeing the

massive voter fraud in the 2020 presidentsal election, i disagree with anyone that doesn't think a special counsel was needed immediately. this was the most corrupt election in the history of our country and must be closely examined. president trump went as far as to promise the job of special counsel to now discredited former trump campaign lawyer sydney powell at a late night meeting on december 18. >> on friday, he had asked me to be special counsel to address the election issues. and to collect evidence. he was extremely frustrated with the lack of law enforcement, i'll call it, by any of the

government agencies that are supposed to act to protect the rule of law and our republic. >> so what would a special counsel do? with only days to go until election certification, it wasn't to investigate anything. an investigation led by a special counsel would just create an illusion of legitimacy and provide fake cover for those that would want to object including those that storm the capitol on january 6. all of the president's plans for the justice department were being rebuffed mr. mr. donoghue, mr. rosen and mr. engle and others. the president became desperate with january 6 fast approaching. president trump rushed back early from mar-a-largo and called an emergency meeting with the department's leadership. here's mr. donahue describing the last minute meeting held at the white house on new year's eve.

>> the president was a little more agitated than he had been on the meeting on the 15th. he discussed a variety of election matters. he did said this sounds like the kind of thing that would warrant appointment of the special counsel. there was a point at which the president said something about why don't you guys seize machines? >> mr. rosen, the president asked you to seize voting machines from state governments. what was your response to that request? >> that we had seen nothing improper with regard to the voting machines. i told him that the real experts of that had been at dhs and they had briefed us that they looked at it and there was nothing wrong with the voting machines. so that was not something that

appropriate to do. >> there's no facts you'll basis to seize machines? >> i don't think there was legal authority either. >> mr. donoghue, can you explain what the president did after he was told that the justice department would not seize voting machines? >> the president was very agitated by the acting attorney general's response. to the extend that machines and the technology was being discussed, the acting attorney general said that the dhs, department of homeland security, had expertise in machines and certifying them and making sure that the states were operating them properly. since dhs had been mentioned, the president yelled out to the secretary, get ken cuccinelli on the phone. he was on the phone and number 2 at dhs at the time.

i was on the speaker phone. the phone said ken, i'm sitting here with the acting attorney general. he said it's your job to seize machines and you're not doing your job. mr. cuccinelli responded. >> mr. rosen, did you tell the department of homeland security that they could seize voting machines? >> no, certainly not. >> mr. donoghue, during this meeting, did the president tell you that he would remove you and mr. rosen because you weren't declaring there was election fraud? >> toward the end of the meeting, the president, again, i was getting very agitated. he said people tell me i should get rid of both of you. i should remove you. make a change in leadership. put jeff clark in. maybe something will finally get done. i responded as i think i had earlier in the december 27th call, mr. president, you should have the leadership that you want. but understand, the united states justice department functions on facts, evidence and

law. those are not going to change. so you can have whatever leadership you want, but the department's position is not going to change. >> the president's white house counsel, pat cipollone was present. do you remember his position? >> he was extremely supportive of the justice department. he was consistent. i think he had an impossible job at that point but he did it well and sided with the justice department. >> let's pause. it's new year's eve. president trump is talking about seizing voting machines and shoot down accusations. claim after claim, knocked down. the president didn't care. the next day, chief meadows looked that the department look into a new sell of allegations.

we'll put those e-mails here on the screen. here we see three requests made on january 1. one e-mail is a request from mr. meadows to you, mr. rosen, to send jeff clark to fulton county what did you do with this request? >> really nothing. certainly didn't send mr. clark to fulton county. but that e-mail was the first corroboration that i had seen of mr. clark had told me at that point that the president was considering making the change by monday, january 4th. so mr. meadows e-mail was something of a corroboration, that there were discussions going on that i had not been informed about by mr. clark or anybody else. >> in the second request that you have is to have the department of justice lawyers investigate allegations of fraud related to new mexico. mr. rosen, did you have concern

about these e-mails? >> yes. really two concerns about that one. one was that it was coming from a campaign or political party. it was really not our role to function as an arm of any campaign for any party or any campaign. that wasn't our role. that's part of why i was unwilling to meet with mr. guliani or any of the campaign people before. and the other part was it was another one of these ones that lots of work had been done and i thought it was a rehash of things that were debunked previously. >> the final e-mail here included a completely baseless conspiracy theory that an italian defense contractor uploaded software into a satellite that switched votes from trump to biden. the select committee investigation found that this wild baseless conspiracy theory made it from the recesses of the

internet to the highest echelons of our government. on december 31, mr. meadows received this internet conspiracy theory from representative perry. on the screen now is the text that representative perry send to mr. meadows copying a youtube link saying "we can't we just work with the italian government?" the next day, the president's chief of staff sent the youtube link to mr. rosen that forwarded it to mr. donoghue. mr. donoghue, did you watch there video? >> i did, congressman. >> how long was the video? >> president 20 minutes. >> let's just take a look at an excerpt of that video. >> what's being said, this was done in the u.s. embassy. that there was a certain state department guy whose name i don't know yet. i guess this is probably going to come out in italy at some

point. he was the mastermind -- not the mastermind but the guy running the operation of changing the votes. and that he was not doing this in conjunction with some support from mi 6, the cia and this leonardo group. >> mr. donoghue, what was your reaction when you watched that entire 20-minute video? >> i e-mailed the acting attorney general. i said pure insanity, which was my impression of the video which was patently absurd. >> mr. rosen, you were asked be i mr. meadows to meet with mr. johnson, the person in that video. what was your reaction to that request? >> so ordinarily i get an e-mail like this and there was no phone call. i would just come over the transom. this one he called me, mr. meadows. he asked me to meet with

mr. johnson. i told him this whole thing about italied that been debunked. that should be the end of that. i certainly wasn't going to meet with this person. he initially seemed to accepted that. he said, you know, why won't you meet with him? if he has real evidence, which this video doesn't show, he can walk into an fbi field office anywhere in the united states. there's 55 of them. he said okay. he called me back a few minutes later and complained and said i didn't tell you, but this fellow, johnson, is working with rudy guliani and mr. guliani is really offended that you think that they have to go to an fbi field office. that's insulting. couldn't you just have the fbi or you meet with these guys? by then i was somewhat agitated. told him that there was no way on earth that i was going to do

that. i wasn't going to meet with mr. johnson. i certainly wasn't going to meet with mr. guliani. i made that clear repeatedly. and so that's the end of that. don't raise this with me again. so because mr. donoghue and i had been in exchanging our views about this, 7:13 on a friday night of new year's day, i had run out of patience and sent the e-mail that you're talking about where i made pretty clear that i had no interest in doing anything further with this. >> just to button this up, mr. donoghue, did you receive a follow up call from the department of defense official about this conspiracy? >> i did. i believe it was the same day. >> can you give details on that at all? >> i received a telephone call from cash patel, who i know was a dod official at that time. worked for the acting secretary of defense miller. he didn't know much about it.

he basically said do you know anything about this italy thing and what this is all about? i informed him that the chief of staff had raised the issue of us in his office on december 29th that we had looked into it a little bit. we had run the name that was provided to us by the chief of staff. i learned that that individual is in custody in italy. he had been arrested for a cyber offense of some sort in italy. the allegation that is that he was ex-filtrating data from a company and everything was murky at best and the video was absurd. but we at the department wouldn't have anything to do with it. dod should make up their own mind what near going to do. i made it clear that there wasn't anything worth pursuing. >> you called it absurd.

we learned that mr. meadows discussed it frequently and he didn't let the matter go. the request went from the department of justice to the secretary of defense, christopher miller as you'll hear, secretary miller reached out to a high-ranking official based in italy to follow up on this claim. >> can you call out the defense attache because i'm getting these crazy records on the ground. >> a call was placed by secretary miller to investigate the claim that italian satellites were switching votes from trump to biden. this is one of the best examples of the links that president trump would go to stay in power. scouring to support his internet

theories as he told mr. donoghue in the 27th call that "you guys may not be following the internet the way i do." president trump's efforts to this point had failed. stone walled by mr. donoghue, president trump had only one option. he needed clark as the acting attorney general. mr. rosen during a january 2 meeting with mr. clark, did you confronted him again about his contact with the president and can you describe that? >> so at this point, mr. clark had told us that the president had asked him to consider whether he would be willing to replace me as supposedly on a timetable by monday, the 4th. so i had told mr. clark i thought he was making a colossal error in judgment, but i also hoped to persuade him to be more rationale and to understand what

we had understood. there's not a factual basis for the fraud a sure shuns being made. so an't this meeting mr. donoghue and i met with mr. clark. i guess my hopes were disappointed and that mr. clark continued to express the view that he thought there was fraud even though he had not been a participant in the department's review of that. and that he was dissatisfied that we knew what we were doing. so but he had acknowledged that he had had a further meeting or phone calls or what, but further discussion with the president despite having a week earlier said if the a, he wouldn't do that and if he got an invitation to do that, he would let rich donoghue or me know. it was a contentious meeting. we were chastising him that he was out of line, he had not

honored his own representations of what he would do. he raised, again, that he thought that letter should go out and we were not receptive to that. >> did he tell you that the president had offered him the job of acting attorney general? ed. >> that was a day later. on the 2nd, he said the president asked him to let him know if he would be willing to take it. subsequently he told me on sunday, the 3rd, he told me that the timeline had moved up and that the president had offered him the job and he was accepting it. >> what was your reaction to that? >> well, you know, on the one hand, i wasn't going to be accept being fire by my subordinate. i wanted to talk to the president directly. with regard to the reason for that is i wanted to try to

convince the president not to go down the wrong path that mr. clark seemed to be advocating. it wasn't only me. there was only 17 days left in the administration at that point. i did not want for the department of justice the be put in a posture where it would be doing things that were not consistent with the truth or not consistent with its own appropriate role or were not consistent with the contusion. i did four things on that sunday, the 3rd. number 1, i called mark meadows and said i need to see the president right away. he was agreeable. and set up a meeting for 6:15 that sunday. so about two hours away. two, i called pat cipollone, the white house counsel. told him what was going on.

he said he would go in to the white house to make sure he was at the meeting and he would be supporting the justice department's position as he had been doing consistently. three, i called steve engle. i was at the department. it was a sunday. there had been some reasons i needed to be there. mr. engle, i called at home and asked if he would god to the meeting, which he did. it proved to be quite helpful. number 4, i asked rich donoghue and pat who had previously been my chief of staff to get the department's senior leadership and let them know what was going on, which they did. and then eric hirschman called me to tell me that he was going to the meeting and he would be supporting the department of justice position as well. so i knew that the meeting was on course and that i would have a number of people supportive of the department of justice's

approach and not supportive of mr. clark's approach. >> did mr. clark ask you to continue to stay at the department? >> that sunday meeting when he told me that he would be replacing me, he said he asked to see me alone because we usually had me with me and mr. donahue because he thought it would be appropriate to at least offer me that i could stay on as his deputy. i thought that was preposterous. i told him that was nonsensical and that there's no universe that i was going to do that, to stay on and support someone else doing things that were not consistent with what i thought should be done. so i didn't accept that offer. if i can put it that way. >> during that meeting did mr. clark ask you to sign the georgia letter? >> that was on the saturday

meeting, january 2, that mr. donoghue and i had with him. he again raised with both of us that he wanted us to both sign that letter. >> in that meeting, did mr. clark said he would turn down the president's offer if you reversed your position and sign the letter? >> yes. >> did mr. clark said he still refused to sign and sent that letter, i take it? >> that's right. i think mr. donoghue and i were both very consistent that there was no way that we were going to sign that letter. didn't matter what mr. clark's proposition was in terms of his own activities, we were not going to sign that letter as long as we were in charge of the justice department. >> thank you for that, by the wayed. mr. donoghue, were you expecting to attend a meeting at the white house january 3? >> no. as the acting a.g. indicated, we

had a meeting that afternoon that related to preparations for january 6. i was at the department. it was a sunday afternoon. i was there in civilian clothes and expected to have that meeting and doing other work. i expected not to go that day. >> prior to that oval office meeting, did you set up a conference call with senior leadership at the department and if so, tell us about that call. >> obviously it was a scramble that afternoon to prepare for the oval office meeting. we had discussed on several occasions the acting attorney general and i whether we should expand the circle of people that knew what was going on. it was very important that steve engle knew. that's why i reached out to steve december 28th. if mr. rosen were removed from the seat and the president did not immediately appoint someone to serve as attorney general by the function of the department's chain of succession, mr. engle

would be in the seat. we wanted him to know what was going on. the three of us knew. we brought pat in. no one else aside from jeff clark, of course, knew what was going on until late that sunday afternoon. we chose to keep it close-holed because we didn't want to create concern or panic in the justice department leadership. at this point i asked the acting a.g. what else can i do to help prepare for this meeting at the oval office. he said you and pat should get the aags on the phone. it's time to let them know what's going on. let's find out what they may do if there's a change in leadership. that will help in form the conversation at the oval office. pat set up that meeting. we got most of the ags on the phone. very quickly explained to them what the situation was.

i told them i don't need an answer for you right now. if you have an answer, i need it. call me, e-mail me, text me, whatever it is, if you know what you would do if jeff clark is put in charge hoff the department. immediately the aag at the civil rights division said there's no way i'm staying. the other aag's began to chime in. they all said they would leave, they would resign in mass if the president made that change in the department leadership. >> incredible. i'd like to look at the assistant attorney generals on the screen if we can pull that up. have their pictures. did every assistant attorney general that you spoke to as you said agree to resign? >> macon was not on the call.

yes, the other people on the screen were on the call and all without hesitation said that they would resign. >> as part of the select committee's investigation, we found that mr. rosen was preparing for the meeting at the white house. jeff clark and the was were in conversation at 7:00 a.m. white house call logs show by 4:19 p.m. on january 3, the white house had already begun referring to mr. clark as the acting attorney general. as far as the white house was concerned, mr. clark was already at the top of the justice department. two hours later, doj leadership arrived at the white house. the select committee interviewed every person who was inside the roomduring this sunday evening oval office meeting. mr. cipollone said that he was

unmistakably angry and he and eric herrishman wanted him to show the election fraud thoughries. can you talk about how that meeting started? >> yes. after -- mr. meadows had ushered us in and he left. so mr. cipollone did some introductions. so after some preliminaries, the president turned to me and he said, well, one thing we know is you, rosen, you are not going to do anything. you don't even agree with the claims of election fraud. this other guy, at least might do something. then i said, mr. president, you're right that i'm not going to allow the justice department to do anything to try to overturn the election. that's true. but the reason for that is because that's what is consistent with the facts and

the law. and that's what's required under the constitution. so that is the right answer and a good thing for the country and there for i submit it's the right thing for you, mr. president. that kicked off another two hours of discussion in which every one in the room was in one way or another making different points but supportive of my approach for the justice department and critical of mr. clark. >> so at some point mr. donoghue comes in the room. can you explain what led to him coming in the room? >> i forgot about that. so initially in part, i think, because he was underdressed, and we had not arranged -- we had not told the president that he was going to come in, the white house had a list of who would be there that didn't include mr. engle and the deputy white house counsel. we went in. then we told the president maybe

ten minutes in the meeting or something, i forget how far in that mr. donoghue was outside and he said well, bring him in. then mr. donoghue came in and joined the meeting. >> so mr. donoghue, you enter that room. can you describe the tone that you walked into? >> yes. if i can back up one moment. you put the pictures up on the screen of the aags. one of the screen was not john demurr. he was on the call. i said john, we need you to stay in place. national security is too important. we need to minimize a disruption. whether you resign is up to you and we'll respect your decision either way. i'm asking you please stay in place. he did. i don't want to leave the impression that he was not willing to resign. >> thank you. >> so with regard to entering the oval office, i was sitting in the hallway. an administrative assistant passed by.

she asked me, are you supposed to be in this meeting with the president? i said no, i'm here in case questions come up that other people don't have the answer to. she walked away and came back. probably 30 second later and said the president wants you in the meeting. i proceeded to the oval office. i took two or three steps in. as the a.g. said, i was not exactly properly attired. i had jeans and an army t-shirt and muddy boots. i never would arrive in the oval office this way. i said mr. president, i apologize. i'm sorry. he said no, no. come in. so i went in. i attempted to take a seat on one of the couches behind the chairs already in front of the president's desk. he said oh, no, no, no. you're going to be up here. everyone laughed. they moved the chairs a little bit. someone picked up a spare chair and put it in front of the

president. i took that seat. >> was there discussion and mr. clark? can you kind of enlighten some of what that discussion was? >> yes. so the conversation at this point had moved beyond the specific allegations, whether it was state farm arena or michigan or pennsylvania or whatever. we had discussed those repeatedly. the conversation -- that was backdrop to the conversation. the conversation was about whether the president should remove jeff rosen and replace him with jeff clark. everyone in the room understood that that meant that letter would go out. so that was the focus, about a 2 1/2 hour meeting after i entered. so there were discussions about the pros and cons of doing that. early on the president said whether do i have to lose? it was a good opening because i said, mr. president, you have a great deal to lose. i explained to him what he had

to lose. what the country had to lose and what the department had to lose. this is not in anyone's best interest. that conversation went on for some time. everybody chimed in and were consistent how damaging this would be to the country, the department, the administration, to him personally. and at some point the conversation turned to whether jeff clark was qualified, competent to run the justice department, which in my mind he clearly was not. it was a heated conversation. i thought with us useful to point out to the president that jeff clark didn't have the skills, the ability and the experience to run the department. so i said, mr. president, you're talking about putting a man in that seat that has neff tried a criminal case, who has never conducted a criminal investigation. he's telling you that he's going to take charge of the

department, 115,000 employees and the fbi and turn the place on a dime and conduct nationwide criminal investigations that will produce results in a matter of days? it's impossible, it's absurd and it's not going to happen and it's going to fail. he has never been in front of a trial jury, a grand jury. he's never even been to chris ray's office. i said at one point, if you walked to chris ray's office, would you know how to get there and do you think he would know where you are? and do you think the fbi would follow your orders? it's not going to happen. he's he not competent. that's the point at which mr. clark tried to defend himself by saying i've been involved in very significant civil and environmental litigation and argued in appeals in appellate courts. i pointed out yes, he was an environmental lawyer. i didn't think that was

appropriate background to be >> did anybody in there supported mr. clark? >> no one. >> mr. rosen, it was you he was going to replace. what was your view about the president's plan to appoint mr. clark? >> well, as i lewded to earlier, the issue wasn't about me. it was -- it would have been fine, as i said, to have rich donoghue replace me. >> welcome to "the five." the january 6th hearings continuing on capitol. we'll monitor it for breaking news. you can watch it on foxnews.com/stream. the supreme court with a ruling that will rock blue states from coast to coast. the nation's highest court tossing out new york state's restrictive regulations on conceal permits, and saying