in the white house or in the congress, as well as in the department of justice where he enlisted jeff clarki think, the facts, already, adduced in this investigation and reported publicly, as you've just done, warrant fair consideration for referral to the department of justice. i think that there are very important evidence that have to be considered by the department of justice in an investigation of criminal lawbreaking. but the important word -- you've just used it -- is accountability. if anybody engaged in lawbreaking, they need to be held accountable. we want to know what happened so it never happens, again. and that has to be our common purpose here. find the facts. follow them and the law, wherever they go, and get all tr they go and get all the witnesses that will voluntarily testify to provide us their truth just as jeff rosen did very credibly. >> senator blumenthal yuft so i understand when you talk about the prospect of criminal behavior potential criminal referral are you talking about the justice department officials who allegedly participated with the former president or ar

a man named jeff clark. drafted this letter.e governor of georgia, the head of the state assembly there in the head of the state senate. dear governor and mister speaker quote, the department of justice is investigating various irregularities of the 2020 election. the department will update you as we were able and investigatory progress. but at this time we have identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election, in multiple states. including the state of georgia. the next paragraph of the letter, he's then linking to the rudy giuliani fake hearing in georgia in december, that was so bonkers, it ultimately contributed to giuliani having his lace suspended in multiple jurisdictions. but that's what jeff clark sites as the evidence for this terrible revelations in georgia. jeff clark's letter continues quote, in light of these developments, the department, meaning the u.s. department of justice, recommends that the georgia general is simply should convene in a special session to take additional test

jeff clark, jeff rosen's subordinate played a key role in this. who is jeff clark? why was he involved? >> he was a justice department official. he headed the environmental natural resources division near the end of the administration. he was also promoted to be the acting head of the civil division, the division that litigates the united states's position in courts. unbeknownst to all the other officials he had been in contact with president trump. we know he was put in touch with the president by representative scott perry of pennsylvania and others. nobodies in the justice department understood what those conversations were about, didn't know they were happening until the end of december when jeff clark started to approach the acting attorney general, the acting deputy attorney general and others asking what the justice department could do to publicly declare the results of the election invalid. this was a shock to his colleagues. they felt they had remember vetted these claims. they were on every front pushing back against white house efforts to get them to make

that apparently resulted in a showdown, where trump tried to install jeff clark as attorney general, himself. which would have meant, among other things, that he definitely could have signed and sent that letter, himself. and, you know, as you know, the disturbing thing about this revelation of this plot over the last few weeks is that, you know, had that letter actually been sent, it is more than imaginable that republicans in the georgia state legislature would have said, yeah, sure, let's do it. let's at least try it. from the u.s. justice department that they reconvene themselves and consider their electoral college -- consider their slate of electors they were sending to the electoral college. and if they wanted to do it, they had the backup of the u.s. justice department claiming that something went terribly wrong with the election. you think they wouldn't have done it? i mean, trump thought they would do it. we know, from notes taken by one justice department official during this time period, that trump believed the georgia legislature was, quote, on our side. and would defini

he says, i hear this other guy, jeff clark, is pretty great, maybe he should run the department., you can have whatever leadership you want but it will not change the outcome. from what i've been told in my reporting, he was obsessed with whether or not he could overturn the results. >> here is also what senator blumenthal told us about whether the doj can now take action against trump. let's listen to them. >> i want to put aside talking about specific individuals. but i will say, as a former united states attorney and a state attorney general for 20 years, there is a real potential here for criminal charges. there are also some officials who did his bidding. and there should be consideration of criminal charges for them and others who may have been complicit. >> so this is a two-part question, but speaking to what the senator was saying, from your reporting, are there any other targets of this investigation? also from what you're learning here, are there any potential criminal charges against the former president or anyone else? >> senator blumenthal is a lawyer and i am not. a

can you get jeff clark to engage on this issue immediately to determine if there's any truth to this allegation? meadows is asking them to call on clark because he knows clark is on the team. the next day meadows arranged a call between trump and georgia's republican secretary of state when trump infamously said, quote, i just want to find 11,780 votes, one more than what he needed. so mark meadows is in on the plot, obviously, and clark and trump together have a plan. here's what it appears to have been. they were going to try to use the completely fabricated allegations of voting fraud and irregularities that had been pumped into the atmosphere by trump and repeated by his allies and the right-wing media and use that to have the department of justice officially send a letter to the six most closely contested states, five of which have republican-controlled legislatures, and say, hey, this is the official blessing of the u.s. department of justice telling you the results in your state are tainted. they can't be trusted. we don't really know who won. and by the way, you have the const

in that position who withstood the pressure. >> reporter: he says the committee wants to talk to jeff clark sources told me over the weekend that he has been in talks with capitol hill about a potential interview. back to you. >> thanks for that report. >>> joining me now is a professor of government at the university of essex. thank you for talking with us. >> thanks for having me. >> so not to cover, but first, the senatery reconvenes at noon today, with a vote set for early tuesday. how significant is it that republicans are poised to help joe biden pass his massive infrastructure bill? and what might this mean politically? >> this is definitely significant, because the u.s. senators have been very much in line with president trump on most things. this is an opportunity for them to break with him, and we think there will be about 20 senators willing to do so. this is one of the key policies of the biden administration. he really wants to get this infrastructure bill passed. it is popular, and i think that's hs why you have senators breaking rank with trump. and deciding to vote with bide

, whether rosen should stay the attorney general, or whether trump should replace him with this jeff clark department officials were so worried that trump would take rosen out and put clark in there instead, that they agreed they would all resign if that occurred. very hair-raising stuff. there will be movies made about this someday. but the reporting about that meeting suggested that when the dust settled and the attorney general was not replaced, rosen stayed in his position, one senior official wrote at the time, it sounds like the cause of justice has won. but something else happened after that meeting. which doesn't, still, to this day, make sense to me. we have these documents that were recently released by the house oversight committee, showing after that meeting was over, and everybody is like, did justice succeed, or is clark taking over? while that is being settled, something else happens on a totally separate track. the deputy attorney general, rich donoghue, sends an email to b.j. pak to call him asap. by 7:41 a.m. the next morning, pak had resigned as u.s. attorney. within a f

now it's an open question at this time whether jeff clark was acting on his own or taking specific directions from the white house or trump. that is something that we know that the judiciary committee and other committees on the hill will be asking about, but what we did learn over the weekend after both of those interviews with donahue and rosen, is that the senate judiciary committee chairman dick durbin spoke to dana bash. he deparidn't provide new information. >> how directly the president was involved. the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen, it was real. very real. it was very specific. this president is not subtle. the former president. he isn't subtle when he wants something. it's a good thing for america that we had rosen that withstood the pressure. >> the committee wants to talk to jeff clark. over the weekend, he's been in talks with capitol hill about a potential interview. back to you. >> thank you so much. >>> when a public health crisis becomes political, the outcome can be deadly. coming up, the damage from rhetoric and misinformation. >>> plus, mass covid testing is und

hard, undeniable evidence that there were folks inside the justice department and this individual, jeff clark, is someone we know former president trump had referenced in his phone call with attorney general rosen and said well, i hear this jeff clark guy is good, maybe he's somebody i should bring on board and here he pops up with his own plan of circumventing the results of the election in georgia. ari, it is important to look at this not just a single moment in time but as part of a long standing course of activities by the former president that starts at least as early as when he's trying to get the ukrainians to help him out to announce the investigation into joe biden onto the moment that he should suggest covid as an excuse to delay the election and spread the big lie after he lost the election. this is a long-running, just standard of conduct by trump that results in the attempted coup. >> yeah, i hear you using that same language, joan, this is so serious. do reasons of some of these things may wrongly seem less important or as best i can tell arbitrary, for example, whether or not s

had he said the committee wants to talk with jeff clark in the coming weeks.sources told me over the weekend that he has been in talks with capitol hill about a potential interview. back to you. >> great. thank you so much for that. >>> this has been the string that all the committees have been trying to go for is what happened between former president trump and going on within the justice department. none of these investigations, so far, has been able to bring a formal abnalysis of that but ar getting little bits of it. we'll bring in former federal prosecutor. andrew, like i've said, we've seen little bits and pieces of what was going on within the justice department. information dripping out from the interviews. senator durbin told what he herd in the interview was frightening. it was a seven hour testimony. so just bring us up to speed. what is your thought when you hear that the activities in the justice department is described as frightening in the very crucial days leading up to the riot. >> we have to look at the timing. that's the most concerning here

what these folks seem to do is have jeff clark, who is an environmental pointer decide to have direct and you know, write these crazy memos, which i think would fail even at the rudy giuliani's school of law, and this is all nonsense. we have to get to the bottom of it. i think melissa is right, we have to get to the bottom of it so it will never happen again. >> yeah, and for viewers keeping track, neal's reference to the rudy giuliani school of law, it's a special law school where you can get a jd and a law license and then you lose your law licenses, and it's ideal, but everybody can exercise your options. and neal walked us through from what he knows of being at the highest level of justice, and it's accountability, and everybody is saying okay professor, neal, ari, what is going to happen, because if you can go that high on a coup attempt and nobody goes to jail, then what? >> i think that's the right question to be asking. as neal suggests there could be exposure for criminal liability because of some of the things that happened in the department of justice if these allegations

what that is, steph, the minute i saw that reporting about what jeff clark did, i thought now we havepiracy, an agreement between two people to commit a crime, defraud the united states, undermine the election results. we have the second element of conspiracy which is an overt act. so if you and i agree to rob a bank and i went out and got the gun, you went out and rented the car because we were going to use a rental car in the bank robbery and then the next day we abandon our plans. we thought we're not going to do it. guess what? even though we didn't rob the bank, we didn't actually move on to the object of the conspiracy, you and i, hypothetically, committed the crime of conspiracy to rob a bank. that is what these facts support and demand an investigation of. a conspiracy that was involved president trump and involved jeff clark and perhaps others. >> katie, for four years, we saw, you know, don mcgahn, john bolton and others drag their feet, drag their feet when it came to testifying. what should we take around rosen moving so quickly to testify? he did it so fast. it's like tru

argued whether it should falsely legitimize trump's claim about the election being stolen which jeff clarkseveral justice department officials were so worried that trump was going to go ahead and do it, that he was gonna take rosen out as attorney general and put this jeff clark guy instead, they were so worried about that that they agreed that they would all resign en masse if that occurred. really hair raising stuff, there will be movies made about this someday. they're reporting about that meeting suggested that when the dust settled and the attorney general was not replaced, rosen stayed in his position, one senior official wrote at the time it's sounds like the sound of justice has won, rosen got to stay and not be replaced by this geoff clark guy. but something else happened after that meeting, which still to this day doesn't make sense to me. we have these documents that were recently released by the house oversight committee, and they show us that after that meeting was over, when everybody was like did justice succeed? is he still attorney general? it's clark gonna take over? some

. >> it sure does, and this guy jeff clark was writing or drafting these letters to all the six states that ended up going for joe biden. and i think that what we see is the beginning of the effort to overturn the election. and i think that now voter suppression efforts are just a continuation of the efforts and unfortunately what we're probably going to see more of in run up to 2024. all the more reason we need transparency as to what happened in aftermath of the 2020 election as well. >> i'm pleased we've seen someone willing to stand up to injustice, and jeffrey rozen was willing to stand out. other people i have interviewed say there's people in the government willing to do the right thing. how can we assure ourselves a corrupt president can't corrupt the justice department and overturn democracy? >> it's a great question. at this point we have to realize that we can't just trust there will be people of integrity in high offices including the presidency, so what needs to be done at justice department to put in place reforms to prevent it from being used as instrument for overturnin

i'm jeff clark. vision. >> jeffrey clark also has become a focal point for congressional investigators. clark drafted this letter to georgia officials telling them doj found evidence of voting irregularities in several states affecting the outcome when the department had not. rosen and donahue stopped the letter from being sent, but clark's efforts to back up trump's false claims didn't end there. sources tell cnn clark insisted that chinese intelligence used special kinds of they are mom meters to change votes. clark wouldn't believe it. and lawmakers are dropping hints that clark might not have been the only one assisting trump's efforts. >> well, it may have been more than just jeffrey clark. it may have been others in the trump orbit, and that's the focus of our investigation going forward. >> are you worried that there were sitting members of congress who were involved in this? >> it is a legitimate question. >> so far it is unclear exactly who clark interacted with. clark's representatives are d

new >> this guy jeff clark was writing or drafting these types of letters with all of the six statesoe biden. >> tonight, what we know about the other states donald trump and jeffrey clark we are targeting and who else was happening helping them to do. it then, cdc director walensky on the surge of vaccinations. the push for masks as kids go back to school. plus electric deep day at the white house. with the new biden push to -- and the sudden death of out american labor giant, remembering a fell ceo richard top gun. all in starts right now. >> he wasn't just a great labor leader, he was a friend. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. when i was here in this chair last, night i started the show by saying donald trump's failed coup was worse than we thought. and 24 hours later i'm here to say once again that the failed coup was worse than we thought last night. it is as we have another damning new bit of information since we reported last night, that this, man former assistant attorney general jeffrey clark played a role in attempting to overturn american democracy. last night,

acting attorney general jeffrey rosen and richadonahue say jeff clark tried to use the department's resourcesing to oust his bosses resisting trump. and this morning on cnn's state of the union dick durbin told dana bash that according to testimony trump also asked rosen to do certain things and meet with people related to crazy conspiracy theory. rosen refused to do it. >> just how directly personally involved the president was, the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen, it was real, very real. it was very specific. this president's not subtle when he wants something, former president. i think it's a good thing for america that we had a person like rosen in that position who w withstood the pressure? >> dana bash joins me now. really incredible to hear that from senator durbin, just the fact that the acting attorney general was standing in way of what appeared to be an attempted coup. where might we be if he had gone along with former president trump's request? >> maybe the answer is another thing that senator durbin told me which is what the former president was trying to do was find who

it turns out this guy jeff clark was writing and drafting these types of, letters to all six states,that what we see is the beginning of the effort to overturn the election, and i think that what we see now, in terms of voter suppression efforts, is just a continuation of those efforts. and unfortunately, probably what we are going to see more of it in the run up to 2024. it's all the more reason why we need more transparency, as to what happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election as well. >> i'm pleased that we've seen an example in the justice department in this. letter of someone who's willing to stand up to the injustice. we now know that jeffrey rosen was willing to stand up to donald trump. on monday night i interviewed lieutenant vindman, who said there's other people in the government like him, prepared to stand up and do the right thing, how do we assure ourselves that this kind of thing cannot just happen. a corrupt president cannot just try to corrupt the justice department and overturn democracy. >> i think that's a great question. i think at this point, here we have t

jeff clark is a minor lackey at the justice department. he is not some high-ranking person.ineer to take over the justice department and replace acting attorney general rosen. that's not the kind of thing you dream up on your own, so there probably is a lot more there, as frank suggests. >> you know, donna, there's often this excuse structure that all of us, all four of us have given to the trump era for four years now that it's incompetent, it's not strategic, but it is in a strategic paradigm of donald trump using the state and the cover of the state for corrupt and malign purposes. in the case of the zelensky call, it was to hold foreign aid for an american ally at risk from attack from russia over them to get them to investigate hunter and joe biden. i'm not saying mr. horowitz is in trump's pocket, but at a time when trump fired many inspectors general, he did not fire mr. horowitz. donna, what do you think, to colonel vindman's point, that he'd like to see this administration do more to examine and shine light on the degree to which corrupt individuals or malign actors

bought into the big lie but who was advocating it and advancing it in a very real way, because if jeff clarkeng attorney general rosen had would have sent a letter to the georgia legislature directing them to take over the election in georgia and to compel an outcome for trump despite the absence of any evidence of fraud. and it's fortunate, frankly, that the acting attorney general pushed back, declined to play games with clarke, who was someone who had been an assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division. he had become the acting head of the civil division. he was so far out of his lane, asking for an intelligence briefing on ongoing criminal matters, that it's difficult to see how that even happened. but it speaks to how much dysfunction there was and how the trump monkeys were really running the show at that point. >> yeah. joyce, thank you so much, really appreciate it as always. >>> when we come back, there are big developments here regarding the allegations against new york governor andrew cuomo. we have that story and much more. stay with us. stay with

i have been told that i should maybe change the leadership of the justice department and put in jeff clarkso he's saying it all right there. that is coercion. that's pressure. i think the committee mostly wants to hear from those particular individuals on that call with trump and who are subject to the week's long repeated efforts by trump to get them to use the justice department's powers for improper purposes. that's basically i paraphrased the draft ill lit racing, which is another document. they need to speak to them about that. >> which is crucial. i want to remind viewers jeffrey clark was the one who wrote a letter calling on georgia to have a special session to look at irregularitys. in the letter he died saying the doj had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election. jeffrey clark had written a lot of that, that had lies in it about the election. all right. thank you both very much. i appreciate your time. >>> and next, the battle between biden and desantis escalating tonight. he responds to the governor vowing to quote stand in the way of bi

can you get jeff clark to engage on this issue immediately to determine if there's any truth to this allegation? the very next day not only did mark meadows set up the infamous phone call in which trump would ask georgia secretary of state, brad raffensperger to find 11,780 votes. meadows was a willing participant in the call. >> mr. secretary, obviously there is -- there are allegations where we believe that not every vote or fair vote and legal vote was counted, and that's at odds with the representation from the secretary of state's office. what i'm hopeful for, is there some way that we can -- we can find some kind of an agreement to look at this a little bit more fully? you know, the president mentioned fulton county. but in some of these areas where there seems to be a difference of where the facts seem to lead. and so, mr. secretary, i was hopeful that, you know, in the spirit of cooperation and compromise, is there something that we can at least have a discussion to look at some of these allegations to find a path forward that's less litigous? >> the day after "the washington

i'm jeff clark.d of the civil division. >> he was in charge of a department at doj that would have had no role investigating voter proud. but in the weeks after the election, clark seemed to cozy up to trump by parroting the president's false claims of fraud. >> that was a rigged election. >> and pushing the justice department to step in. >> jeffrey clark reportedly told you that your days as acting attorney general bewere numbere. is that true? >> congressman, the items you are talking about, i have seen media accounts. >> jeffrey rosen has never publically confirmed the intense pressure campaign coming from clark to get the doj to help overturn the election for trump. but new documents and detailed uncovered in connection with an in depth probe shows just how far clark went. a draft letter details how clark planned to write georgia officials to falsesy say doj found voting irregularities in several states. he wanted them to sign on, but they flat-out refused be donovan responding in e-mail, there i

i don't know this fella jeff clark. he's clearly got problems of some kind.hat donald trump have to say about the roll of the justice department in trying to confuse people or contradict the 2020 election have any merit at all? absolutely not. it was reprehensible from incomprehensible behavior trump was engaged in. he didn't have a coup plot. he couldn't think that comprehensively to come up with a coup plot. the idea of the justice department doing something was proposed to him by rudy giuliani, the pillow guy. who knows. the odds of it actually happening were between slim and none , the fact of the matter is he did it. and it wasn't just donald trump. it was jeffrey clark. you had officials in the government. it was the white house chief of staff who is a very powerful person. and, yes, the guardrails held, but it was also the matter of the riot, the i think recollection at the capitol, correct? i mean, what was the impact of what happened? >> and that should be investigated, foo. that should be investigated, too. but you have to ask the question to preven

>> we've already asked some potential witnesses to come before us like jeff clark who did trump's bidding unlike other top officials. we have no guarantee they will appear. our subpoena powers may be somewhat limited as a practical matter. i wish i could talk more about the details of what we've seen and heard. you're absolutely right, dick durban as chairman will make the call whether to seek subpoena power and what other witnesses will be called but there is plenty to do here and the american people deserve accountability. we need to know all of what happened so it doesn't happen again and so whatever happens in the legal courts, we know that there is some justice in the court of public opinion as people assess who aided and abetted donald trump in this extraordinary pressure campaign. >> so i want to ask you one more thing. the senate finally passed the bipartisan infrastructure bill overnight and i know you're now focused immediately that was the you got the bipartisan infrastructure bill and then we'll -- democrats will push for everything else they wanted via reconciliation majority

the fact that there were people like jeff clark who were willing to carry out trump's dirty deeds and constitution in order to try to deliver the election results for trump. i mean, imagine if this guy had actually been the kting a attorney general and the justice department had done this. to my mind the most significant part of that letter was where he tells the georgia legislature, you have the power to overturn the election results. you have the power to select electors for the state of georgia which are different from the ones chosen by the voters. that was basically an invitation for the republican-controlled state legislature to send electors to washington to pledge to donald trump rather than to joe biden as selected by the voters. now, imagine this being done in multiple swing states. that could swing the election and return donald trump to the white house. as i said before, we narrowly avoided that this time around but we may not avoid it four years from now. so clearly we need to do whatever we can to prevent people like this from taking power again. i think the big thing th

my hope is that jeff clark will appear voluntarily along with others in the trump orbit.congress who had a role. >> finally, overnight, a key procedural vote you got 18 republicans as part of the bible bipartisan infrastructure deal. how concerned are you that when this goes to the house, economical of there? >> i think there is a real determination to make sure that we rebuild our roads, bridges, airports. the country has delayed for much too long, this much-needed effort. and i am hopeful. i'm never confident about anything in the united states congress. nancy pelosi is a supremely competent leader. and i am very hopeful about the results. >> senator richard menthol we appreciate your time. thanks for joining us this morning. >>> up next atop eight two governor cuomo just quit. is this the beginning of the end of the governor who is about to face impeachment to mark and congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez relive the day when insurrection is stormed the u.s. capitol in a new cnn interview. >> i did not think i was just going to be killed. i thought other things were g

. >> turns out this guy jeff clark was writing or drafting these types of letters to all the six statesi think, you know, what we see is the beginning of the effort to overturn the election. >> jeffrey clark, very senior department justice official was apparently getting ready to send letters to states to tell republicans in those states who are running the election that your election has not been very good and you should fix your electors. that was as close as we got. we could have come very close to something that you are now prepared to say was a coup. >> this letter from jeffrey clark, ali, is so disturbing. the draft has now become public. it's a detailed letter explaining to states how they can go about overturning the election. this is so far out of the lane of what the justice department does, which is ordinarily very differential to states in their own governing decision. it sets out all the statutes that are necessary for a state to say, you know, we're going to declare our election failed because of all of this fraud that has been reported. therefore, it allows us to throw th

going to send it to all the swing states trump wanted to overturn >> it turns out that this guy, jeff clarking or drafting these types of letters to all the six states that ended up going for joe biden and i think that, you know, what we see is the beginning of the effort to overturn the election. >> seth: there's always an obscure functionary willing to do the villain's dirty work. jeffrey clark's like the guy who opens the monkey cage in the first five minutes of a zombie movie. i mean, can you imagine what would have happened if, not trump, but the trump justice department sent out an official statement claiming there was fraud in the election and telling republican legislatures in six states to overturn the results? mike lindell would have exploded into 1,000 pillow feathers or, i guess, since it's a "my pillow," he would have exploded into 1,000 charcoal briquettes "the charcoal give the pillow its patented rock-like texture and helps you wake up with that fresh hickory smell. anyway, i'll take two of your biggest hams [ light laughter ] you should know there's a guy peeping in his car

. >> this guy, jeff clark, was writing or drafting these types of letters to all the six states thatwho else was helping them to do it. >>> then, cdc director rochelle walensky on the surge in vaccinations. the delta variant spread and the push for

everything we've seen in the last couple weeks with donald trump having talked to jeff rosen, and this guy jeffrey clark writing letters to people trying to overturn elections, and the fact that there was actually a planned -- is voting right stuff seems to be that important. certainly not as bipartisan, but it's that important. where are you on deciding that that voting rights bill has to get done, even if it means putting aside the filibuster for the purposes of certain bills? >> two things, ali. hi really glad you are following the details of the judiciary committee investigation you are just referring to that has come forward with some really shocking details about rosen and clark and others in the department of justice as former president trump tried to bully his way into an election that he did not win. we are going to take up and vote on a voting rights bill before we leave, something that will show that all of us, all 50 democrats, are committed to the idea that we have to move forward on voting rights. ali, this is something that used to be bipartisan. the last time the voting rights act was re

jeffreyry clark who had no business interfering in the election, a guy we never heard of -- the part i left out here is that there was an underlying promise there if jeff rossen and richard donohue did not do the president's bidding, jeffreyy clark would have been a name every american knew because he might have become the attorney general of the united states. >> that's exactly right, ali. i think this all ties together. i think that -- i don't know this for certain. but i believe that b.j. pacs with a sacrificial lamb. president trump on a sunday meeting with top people at the justice department and the white house was furious, had promised the ag job to jeffreyy clark wanted to get rid of the acting attorney general, jeffreyy rosen. too many jefferies in this story. he wanted to fire somebody. i think b.j. pac was the sacrificial lamb because the president was told if he fired rosen and installed jeffrey clark that the entire hierarchy of the justice department remaining hierarchy of the justice department would resign. and i think you got it exactly right. we have focused properly on the coup we saw unfold before our eyes on january 6th. but there

clark wrote. he said in an e-mail, to jeff rosen and rich donahue, who was the general attorney at the time.hould get it out as as soon as possible. personally, i see no valid downsides to sends out this letter. richard donaghue said, there is no chance that i would sign this letter or anything reprmotely le this. and rosen said, i confirmed again today that i am not prepared to sign such a letter. clark ended up not getting the job, rosen remained on the job until president biden was inaugurated on january 20th. but, wolf, it really just goes to show you the efforts beyond what we know the president was doing and his lawyers were doing, some of these extraordinary crazy claims that they were making inside the justice department. these officials, who were basically standing tall, were trying to prevent chaiyasombat -- chaos from ensuing. >> i'm glad they did. evan perez with excellent, excellent reporting. david axelrod is with us, cnn legal and national security analyst. carrie cordero is with us also. what do you think about laying this groundwork for a coup? >> to the extent there is anyo

clark. so they wanted them to weigh in on the election having serious problems and there is a telephone call that the president had with jeffsaid why don't you say that the election is corrupt, and let me take it from there with the house republicans, and jeffrey clark drafted a letter that he wanted the attorney general to sign and send to legislators in georgia suggesting that they want to go into the special session so they could potentially issue electoral votes of their own if they had questions about the outcome of the georgia election. of course, the current and former justice department officials are not a problem for the committee to get to, because the white house has said it won't assert executive privilege over them, and the justice department has said they can testify, which is what the committee has been doing so far, and that is relatively easy work. >> talk to me about who jeffrey clark is, pete. what do we know about him? >> well, he was a trump appointee as you noted and he was sent to the justice department through the natural resources division, and then was sent into the attorney general divisions, and

nick clark, our environment editor, and thank you to our team with the update on the landmark us report or out of time . now whether he is jeff with more on other parts of the world facing fires. hello, there is the risk free. could see more wildfires the rep through northern africa and iberia and the dates the com. let me explain why. first i take you to northwestern africa. look at this tunis, 48 degrees on tuesday. the all time temperature ever recorded in tune, it was 47.4. so this could be record breaking stuff next to iberia. this is a few days out now. so here we are on saturday look, lives been 36 cordova 47. i point out cordova because much like tune is high temperature ever recorded 46.9. so once again, we could set a new record there on to the weather of tuesday as promise. we'll get him to some sunny spells across the british isles, including for london, but still disturbed weather across the low countries, scandinavia, and a pretty good run of rain in and around. war sat. next, an update on the wildfires in greece and turkey. sure, temperatures have come down. 36 in athens, but low humidity, so the air is very dr

jeff rosen. and what rosen specifically was talking about was a subordinate of both of these men. a man named jeffrey clarkhe number three level at the justice department. an environmental lawyer who was trying to get the justice department to substantiate these election fraud claims as well. trying to get the justice department to take steps publicly to support what trump wanted. now those five episodes we know a little bit of the details of those, but we don't actually know any new information that may have been presented from jeff rosen or richard donahue to the committee. that was something that dick durbin, the senate judiciary chairman, declined to expand on this morning, but this is what he did say to dana on cnn. >> just how directly personally involved the president was. the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen, it was real. very real. and it was very specific. this president's not subtle. the former president. he's not subtle when he wants something. it's a good thing for america that we had a person like rosen in that position who withstood the pressure. >> and durbin also said that the comm

clark would. before that meeting, he wrote in this letter that he never sent, he said this, this evening after acting attorney general jeff instructions to utilize the department of justice's law enforcement powers for improper ends, the president removed jeff from the department. now, of course, that firing never happened and never sent the letter but we know, erin, at least a half dozen other doj officials had similar plans to resign if rosen wasn't fired. so this is all coming out as investigators in the house, lawmakers are looking into all of these efforts from trump and now we know at least one doj official to try to overturn the election. erin? >> pretty incredible. and it's incredible to do aparen d -- "apprentice" style showdown. it's pretty statebrett stunning levels. let's go straight to former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york and john avalon, anchor and cnn senior political analyst. thanks so much to both. did trump commit a crime? >> yeah, erin, forget about a crime. i see several federal crimes here. i'll be specific. it is a federal crime to deprive a state of a fair election. i

jeff rosen spoke with the senate judiciary committee this weekend for seven hours behind closed doors. "new york times" reporting that rosen told congressional investigators that one of his deputies, jeffrey clarkied to help the former president subvert the results of the 2020 election. ali vitali has following this for us. we're learning more about this, but what can you tell us? what more do you know about this and next steps here, of course? >> it's all recall le stunning, yasmin. even though the president is no longer in the oval office, no longer even in washington, clearly there's still so much to learn about what he was doing in the final weeks between the time he lost the 2020 presidential election and the time he actually left the oval office on inauguration day for joe biden. what we're learning here is not just his former acting attorney general jeffrey rosen testified behind closed doors for multiple hours. we're also learning thinks deputy, richard donahue also testified. those are two key people that had contact with the white house and other officials during that key period of time. really senator blumenthal, one of the senators on the judiciary committee part of that behind clos

clark wouldn't believe him. so we learned that. there were also new revelations in this testimony over the weekend about trump and how much he actually pressured the acting a.g., jeff take a listen. >> how directly personally involved the president was. the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen. it was real. very real. it was very specific. this president is not subtle when he wants something -- former president is not subtle when he wants something. it's a good thing for america that we had a person like rosen in that position who withstood the pressure. >> senator durbin saying this afternoon that the next witness on their list is the former u.s. attorney yes general, b.j. pock. pock resigned abruptly right after that taped phone call came out of trump pressuring georgia secretary of state to just find him more votes. so there's a lot of questions as to what pock new, what pressure he was facing. senator durbin hoping to get at that. >> another reason why this january 6th select committee is so crucial for us to get to the facts about what happened, what led up to the insurrection and what was happening behind the scenes. i assume these people who are intervie

jeffrey clark, as we mentioned he was the high-ranking justice department official, who was apparently more onboard with trump's strategy to overturn the election than the acting attorney general jeffslature to go into special session over the election results. it's completely over the line and you look at each of these events, individually. and then, you look at them, in totality. the attempts to interfere with the results, the big lie, the insurrection, they are all part of a piece. >> well, they are. and, you know, look. in terms of all of the former president's conduct, among the most egregious and, frankly, among the most worthy of investigation with an eye to potential prosecution is what the former president tried to do in georgia. there he was, on the phone, in a recorded conversation, asking the secretary of state to find 11,870 votes that don't exist. you know, anyone else doing that would have been prosecuted, already. and the evidence that you are referring to tonight, these internal letters and other discussions going on by clark. no doubt, at the urging of donald trump, to try to give the georgia legislature a reason to convene and overturn the results would be more e

jeff from the department. rich donohue and i resigned from the department effective immediately to their credit that is what stood between. but my concern is the add mixture in the republican party of jeffrey clarks and jeffrey rosens. >> yeah, look, i'm not the guy to come to if you're looking for an optimistic view of this because i think it's simple what they want to do. they do want to overthrow the electoral process as we know it. so what happens to this guy? he tries this, it comes close, it fails, he goes to a cushy job. what are they going to do? they're going to sit there, try to refine their arguments, try to go more legal theories and they're going to come back. you don't see an ounce of remorse here. no one is apologizing, and it's always the people you never thought about who are up for doing the unthinkable. and that's what this guy is. and he has a complete structure that supports him, that's well-financed. they're very patient, and they think they're going to win. >> that point stuart just made clear is so true, which is that there's two kind of schools of -- in mainstream republican party there are people embarrassed by it and don't want to talk about it, and that's, you know, th