jeffrey clark is his name. he is in many different ways unremarkable, the kind of functionary lawyer that exists in droves in washington, d.c. he went to a big law school, worked in a big corporate firm, kirkland and ellis, worked in the george bush administration. in september 2020 he was put in charge of the doj's civil division. "the new york times" reported that in december as acting attorney general jeffrey rosen and his deputy richard donohue, were pushing back on trump's attempts to use the justice department to undermine the election, they were unaware that mr. clark, jeffrey clark had been introduced to president trump by a pennsylvania politician and that clark had told the president he agreed that fraud had affected the election results. basically he auditioned before the president and let him know he'd be willing to be the trigger man for donald trump in his attempt to kill off american democracy in its present form and that is not hyperbole. it's a letter to the georgia governor, the speaker of the

trump did find a willing participant in the assistant attorney general for the civil division, jeffrey clarkd the public reporting is that clark met privately with president trump, completely forbidden under the department policies. communications are to be done in a formal way. the idea that the president is talking with an underling, planning a strategy is, alone, highly irreg. then we have seen this her he drafted for the signature of the acting attorney general to send out to all the states, including georgia, where the elections were close. this is so far out of the lane of the justice department. providing legal advice to states about how they could engineer a different result in their state. they could say, and he states the statute, that we declare our election failed because there's so much irregularity, therefore it throws the election to legislatures, which were all crowd by republicans, and we cast the vote for donald trump. he laid out that road map for them. so i think jeffrey clark and anyone else involved should be concerned with conspiracy charges. >> do you think anything m

what did jeffrey clark do? he took that nefarious suggestion and he ran with it. drafted a letter to state officials in georgia and five other states saying in essence, we think the election might be corrupt. here's how you can get rid of the slate of electors for joe biden and pick selectors for donald trump and basically corruptly throw him the election. that act by jeffrey clark drafting the letter, circulating it to other doj officials, he didn't have to send it. that's an overt act that proves the crime of conspiracy. once the conspiracy is committed because you have the agreement and one overt act, you don't have to go on to commit the object of the conspiracy. the crime of conspiracy is complete. that's what we see in the reporting of what donald trump and jeffrey clark did. >> even though now we have the justice department in the hands of sane people and people who were not overtly corrupt, right, but at the state level what republicans have done is to remove all of the people who would have -- who stood in the way the first time and replaced them with flu

but he cannot force jeffrey clark to testify. why not? because jeffrey clark is a former justice department official. and he can't compel that testimony. >> wow. i learn so much from both of you. thank you so much. and somebody's dog really enjoyed that as well. >> i kept him quiet the whole time. >> we're big with pets on "velshi." >> there is some treats going on behind the scenes here. >> thanks to both of. . good to see you this morning. eugene daniels who us correspondent at politico and co-author of the politico playbook. ruth m-columnist, editor at the “washington post” with a article on jeffrey clark. >>> joining me now the pennsylvania senator. casey. i talked to you about stuff this congress and legislative priorities. but i have to ask you about this. because so much happened since the last time you and i talked where we have discovered that this -- in pipe dream of donald trump's to undermine the election was substantially more than a pipe treem. it was a plot. >> yeah, ali, i think what you heard in the last discussion is the

you had jeffrey clark, who was another official at justice department. lking to behind the scenes. and jeffrey rosen. both went up to the white house, where the president essentially had these men vie for the job of attorney general. the president was looking for someone who was going to do his bidding. rosen was not willing to do that and, eventually, rosen and other officials talked the president out of firing rosen keeping him on the job. but i mean, it's -- it's an un -- just an extraordinary episode to happen inside the white house. again, just a couple days before the attack on the u.s. capitol, which was carried out by people who were believing the president's lies about the election. >> right. and if they had found some henchmen at the department of justice to go along with that, i mean, that would -- >> course of history, right? the course of history would have been changed. >>. incredible. evan perez, thank you. just to amplify both the factual absurdity but also the real danger of that letter we mentioned a moment ago, which was drafted but nev

, jeffrey clark, had been introduced to president trump by a pennsylvania politician, and that clark had told the president he agreed that fraud had affected the election results. basically, he auditioned for the president and let him know that he would be a trigger man for donald trump's attempt to kill off american democracy in its present form. that is not hyperbole. clark met with trump, he schemed with trump, and he drafted the document i talked about. it's this letter. it's still letter that the georgia governor and a drafted for rosen and donahue to sign, officially from the u.s. department of justice. it says in part, the department of justice is investigating various irregularities in the 2020 election for the president of the united states. at this time, we have identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including georgia. while the department of justice agrees the governor of georgia should immediately call a special session to consider this important and urgent matter, if he declines to do that, we share with you

that's the jeffrey clark plot, it appears. >> chris, that is the smoking gun. it's unnerving how close trump came to using the full weight of the justice department to overturn the election result. what clark was saying to the georgia governor and legislature is not just you have a green light, but you should call a special session and say that the election was corrupt and overturn the result. now here's the shocking part. he says this is a concept that we can use in every other battleground state. it's like a high school student doing a copy and paste assignment. there's not even a pretense of looking at the individual states and if there was fraud committed. basically let's just use a copy of what we did in georgia and send this to every other battleground state. tell them it's corrupt and they should have the legislature convene to have trump electors. it is amazing how close trump came to subverting our democracy. >> yeah, and we should note that trump says this now. we got those famous notes from donoghue serving as the deputy to jeffrey rosen during this p

jeffrey clark tried to take over. we heard people talk publicly about this, meaning it happened at the white house, which people have said was like the game show apprentice. it was deadly serious where they were both making their case for a. z a.g. jeffrey clark was choose me, i have your back on election fraud. choose me, i'm quitting, he's quitting. he backed off. it was that close to jeffrey clark becoming attorney general. >> it was not for lack of trying. >> absolutely. >> all right. where does the current attorney general stand in this drama me? >> merrick garland has work to do. he has three major task. reestablish d.o.j.'s independence. he's done a good job. six weeks ago he issued new rules about keeping d.o.j. separate from communications with the white house. cooperation with congress. we have subpoenas coming soon. garland said he's not going to block d.o.j. employees from testifying. that should clear the way or at least remove one of the obstacles to people like rosen, donohue, maybe barr, jeffrey clark

. >> jeffrey clark reportedly told you that your days as acting attorney general bewere numbere.e? >> 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 is no chance i would sign this letter or anything remotely like this. >> it signifies how perilously close we came to the department of justice being weaponized. >> clark's draft letter was dated december 28th, one day after trump called rosen and donahue telling them, just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. days later trump was on the phone with georgia's secretary of state plea

new reporting on jeffrey clark.er of the justice department under the former president and his apparent willingness to go ahead with the president's attempts to undermine the election despite receiving a classified briefing that said his information was simply wrong. that's coming up. ♪ ♪ [sfx: radio being tuned] welcome to allstate. ♪ [band plays] ♪ a place where everyone lives life well-protected. ♪ and even when things go a bit wrong, we've got your back. here, things work the way you wish they would. and better protection costs a whole lot less. you're in good hands with allstate. click or call for a lower auto rate today. centrum multigummies aren't just great tasting... they're power-packed vitamins... that help unleash your energy. loaded with b vitamins... ...and other key essential nutrients... ...it's a tasty way to conquer your day. try centrum multi gummies. now with a new look. ♪ ♪ oh, focaccia! ah, there's no place like panera. enjoy the toasty, saucy chipotle chicken avocado melt on freshly baked brea

, and jeffrey rosen and jack clark.ted them to weigh in on the election having serious problems and there is a telephone call that the president had with jeff rosen that said 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

replace him with jeffrey clark. um, he also was trying to hold the line.ese people. and while i didn't agree with a lot of what they were doing, you saw attempts of them trying to hold up the rule of law over people, like jeffrey clark. and that's why it is so dangerous because you can't have a president putting in, basically, campaign-style people in the justice department who aren't following the law. >> yeah. you were at the white house this evening, when president biden signed the bill you co-sponsored honoring the capitol police officers with the congressional gold medal for their actions on january 6th. 21 house republicans opposed the bill. what do you say to some of your republican colleagues in both chambers of congress who are, still, trying to rewrite history and deny what happened that day and make it seem as though it was just a regular day with tourists coming to the capitol? >> well, it was absolutely absurd that 20 some of them in the house didn't support it. and the fact that they said it was, was because it had the word insurrection. i wa

savor your summer with lincoln. >>> breaking news, tonight, on jeffrey clark.ce department lawyer in the last administration who has now become a major figure in the saga of then-president efforts -- the then-president's efforts to get the doj to interfere with the nation's election results on his behalf to overturn the election. cnn's learned that around new year's, 2021, clark received a classified briefing from then-director of national intelligence, john ratcliffe, that showed there was no evidence that foreign interference had impacted the vote tallies in the vote. which went against his conspiracy theories that clark was pushing at the doj, in support of the outgoing president. one of the theories clark was spreading -- we're not making this up -- was that chinese intelligence used special kinds of thermometers to change results in voting machines. again, i'm not making that up. meanwhile, tonight, cnn has learned that another, former high-ranking doj official, former-acting deputy attorney general, richard donoghue, testified before the senate judiciary

trump's ally jeffrey clark proposed that they sign a letter to officials in multiple states encouraging their state legislatures to send new electors, overturning the election, essentially. top hue said, quote, there is no chance that i would sign this letter or anything remotely like il. rosen agreed. quote. i confirmed again today i am not prepared to sign such a letter. new york times reports that when clark then went behind rosen's back and plotted with trump permanently to replace the acting attorney general with clark himself, the wheeling compliant coup plotter as acting attorney general so that clark himself could sign the letter. that's when donahue convened a late afternoon call laying out clark's efforts to replace mr. rosen. should mr. rosen be fired, they all agreed to resign en masse. that coup that almost came off, right, was a product of two things, the anti-st democratic, flatly dick that toerl aspirationings of donald trump, which have always been there for decades, as well as mark meadows and jeffrey clark, men whose names should live in infamiliary. it was part of a

>> you know, i remember jeffrey clark's name in one very big way and that was the reports from "the newump was trying to install him as the attorney general over the acting attorney general jeffrey rosen for the purposes of him maintaining the lie when it came to the election. so what we want to know about now is what his role was when it came to election suppression, when it came to questioning the results of the final results of the election, and there's a lot of information out there about what he could have been doing with georgia. and i just step back from this. this isn't a campaign. this is the justice department. in america, the president isn't kingsessing. the law is kingsessing. that's the first thing. he has an obligation to the law of the united states, not to donald trump. that is the oath of office that he took. then the second fees of this is just exactly as you point out, what he did and we are by the way, trying to make sure this never happens again with a bill that i have just introduced with senator war knock of georgia to stepped some of the protections so that we ca

in the case of jeffrey clark, he said he had his own secret intelligence sources, former official thathis information from and he insisted that he needed a classified briefing and that's why jeffrey rosen and other officials there, they thought, well, if we give him a briefing, he'll go away with this non-sense and in the end he sat down with change. he believed that some of the intelligence was being hidden from and still continued to push this idea there might have been fraud and a couple days clark was at the white house where the president was trying to decide to fire rosen and replace him with clark. >> evan, thank you so much for that reporting. really kind of remarkable even still. >>> "outfront" now democratic congressman adam schiff on the house select committee investigating january 6th and the chairman of the house intelligence committee. congressman, thank you for coming on. i want your reaction to this reporting from evan perez how far jeffrey clark went to try to help donald trump push this massive election guy even going to the specialized chinese thermometers. >> it is

it was jeffrey clark. you had officials in the government.he 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 prevent it next time, what's the most important thing? and from the voters' perspective, it's look at the character of the people who are running for office. ultimately, if the people don't reject people like trump, constitutional barriers will be paper thin. that's the real test. >> i think liz cheney who you spoke about before, and she's speaking of her father here, i'll play the sound for you, i think she's worried that the republican party itself might not stand as the guardrail here going forward. or at least not right now. listen to this. >> my dad is deeply troubled about where our party is, deeply troubled about where the country is. and just a tremendous source of advice and guidance and wisdom for me. >> deeply troubled where the party is. ambassador, how about you? >> sure

we know from previous reporting that trump had an ally in jeffrey clark. rk wanted the acting attorney, jeffrey rosen and his deputy, richard donoghue to sign off on this letter and it falsely stated that doj found voting irregularities that impacted the election outcome in several states. what we're seeing in subsequent emails that accompanied this letter is how rosen and donoghue stopped this effort. they said there was no widespread election fraud. that's something the a.g. bill barr publicly stated and there was no basis for this letter drafted by jeffrey clark to be sent to georgia or any other state. donoghue put it in black and white and said this. there is no chance i would sign this letter or anything remotely like this. so the letter was never sent but it is part of a trove of evidence that lawmakers and likely the doj inspector general are sifting through to uncover the lengths that trump and his allies went to to push their claims of election fraud. this likely won't be the last we hear or last documents we get. doj has told trump officials that

there's this important person here, jeffrey clark.oj then the head of the civil unit. very important person leading up to january 6th. the latest reporting we have from my colleagues is that he was so fixated on this election fraud claim that he actually requested a briefing by the director of national intelligence, john ratcliffe. he also told people within doj he had unique information to suggest that the chinese were able to use special thermometers to manipulate votes. when he got this briefing from john, according to sources familiar with this briefing, he was not swayed by ratcliff's argument. what's important to know is that was around december 28th. late in december, five days after bill barr left the justice department, five days he said there was no widespread election fraud, none of that seemed to matter to jeffrey clark who was fixated on this election fraud claims. as he move forward, we are going to watch closely the committee's work trying to talk to people who were in jeffrey clark's and donald trump's orbit at the tim

but the pressure continued that next day with that draft letter from jeffrey clark where he recommendeds lawmakers that they assemble this special election to investigate voter fraud. and clark said, i think we should get it out as soon as possible. personally i see no valid downside to sending out the letter. but an hour later very promptly donoghue sent back a lengthy rebuttal saying this, there is no chance that i would sign this letter or anything remotely like this from where i stand, this is not even within the realm of possibility. and the acting a.g. sending donoghue an email that said, i confirmed again today that i am not prepared to sign such a letter. so in the end this letter was never sent. but it is part of this trove of evidence that lawmakers as well likely the doj inspector general, they are all sifting through it to uncover the lengths that trump and his allies went to push their claims of election fraud to hopefully get the election overturned, in their view. and this probably won't be the last that we hear. the doj has told trump officials they can participate in co

clark. quote it's never that simple for people in trump's orbit. there were continued statements that were and true. jeffrey rosen also told quote. here is the senate judiciary chairman dickson durbin earlier on msnbc. >> a lot of information we would like together for mr. clark to bring some clarity to this situation. it certainly raised a question, mr. rosen understood that mr. clark was waiting in the wings and if he didn't do president trump's quest, comply with those requests, he very easily could have been replaced. >> donald trump abused his office. for anyone with eyes or ears, before the 2016 election, you could see the potential for abuse was high -- so it's possible even more alarming that trump's abuses where the abuses of the people around him. from people who were not gold toilet drifters like trump. people like jeffrey clark, who were all too eager it seems to break the law for a man who lost the election. before we start sanctifying jeffrey rosen, reacting internal general, note that he sat in silence for nine or ten months before speaking out against these abuses. forever jeffrey clark will

one, you used the term trump loyalist to jeffrey clark.ck because of how absurd the letter is. one of the things richard donahue writes in his email in response to this is we as the justice department don't advise states as to how to handle their election certification processes. this is simply a misunderstanding and an abuse of the power of the justice department and clark clearly didn't understand that and did not have the justice department's interests at heart. so, you know, i think we should also -- yes, there are reasons to criticize both jeffrey rosen and richard donoughe, the two people to whom this was sent because they were complicit in any number of let's say untoward actions of the justice department, but they knew enough to know that this was nonsense and it was not rooted in law and should never have happened. and they put the brakes on it. >> and there's reporting out there that indicates kwlarks eager to get them out of the way to do trump's bidding, too. margaret, the house oversight committee reportedly had this and other

this weekend, trump's former acting attorney general, jeffrey rosen, said one of his deputies, jeffrey clark, tried to help trump subvert the 2020 election results to subject doubt into the results. you remember last month when the oversight committee released handwritten notes detailing a call between trump and top doj officials. he told them to, quote, leave the rest to him and his congressional allies. chair of the judiciary committee, senator dick durbin on cnn today detailing the seven-hour meeting with rosen. >> he was being asked by the white house, the leadership in the white house to meet with certain people who had these wild, bizarre theories of why the election was invalid and he refused to do it. i will have to say history will be very kind to mr. rosen when it's all over. when he was initially appointed i didn't think that was case and i was wrong. >> as we learn more about trump's attempt to hold on to power, remember what he and the republican party call themselves, the party of "law & order," and it's not what republicans want these days. instead they pine for a strongman wh

jeffrey clark, a trump loyalist who works at the justice department circulates a letter.his calls on georgia to convene a special legislative session to look into quote irreconciling laters in the 2020 election. the letter falsely claims that the doj identified quote significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of georgia. end quote. that is a complete lie. the department of justice had not identified that. it's a lie. barr had already said it was a lie. this guy clark goes out, send out this lie. well, doj officials rejected his request to send that specific letter. trump doesn't stop. in the days that follow. he continues to go out there. he is growing more desperate at this point. december wipe thelet. mark meadows has a meeting with rosen and several others, the top sick voter fraud. january 1st, meadows again e-mails rosen and in this e-mail meadows chief of staff to the president of the united states sends rosen a youtube video. it thaux about italks about italian satellites fixing the u.s. election.

jeffrey clark did that. he should be investigated. >> and how do democrats prevent donald trump from running again? given what he's already done, the damage he's already done to democracy, both kind of not just in a doj sense, but physical damage to the building you serve in? is using the 14th amendment a possibility and if not, why not? >> the goal is not to prevent the former president from running again. it should be to hold him accountable. in the last four years, the evidence is overwhelming that he committed obstruction of justice. he also violated federal campaign finance laws. the same law that landed his co-conspirator, michael cohn, in prison. i hope they look at all the evidence and that they do whatever normal investigations they would do for anybody in america because no one should be above the law. not the president, not the former president. >> and you're right and we've heard a lot of democrats say that. i'm just looking for the actions. one last question. is merit garland, the current ag, th

i can tell you're revved up about one jeffrey clark at doj. and we'll remind everyone his title at the time was acting chief of the civil division. kind of a cipher and an enigma to even his coworkers at doj. tell our viewers just how unusual it would be for a guy like jeffrey clark to have access to and meetings with the president of the united states. >> literally never happens. certainly not without the attorney general or deputy attorney general being there. one of my first things i did at the justice department back when i was a young pup was draft part of the white house contacts policy, which says you can only reach the president if you're the attorney general or deputy attorney general. and no one else. and certainly not someone angling like this guy was. and, you know, if someone is trying to illustrate the banality of evil to me, brian, i'd say career environmental lawyer decides to facilitate a coup is kind of on the nose. and what disturbs me tonight is we know that there is an inspector general investigation. we know there is a ja

jeffrey clark did that. he should be investigated. >> how do democrats prevent donald trump, from running again? given what he's already done? the damage is already done to mock or see. not just in a doj sense, but physical damage to the building you serve in. he's using the 14th amendment, a possibility? and if not why not? >> the goal is not to prevent the former president from running again, it should be to hold him accountable, for the last four years, it's overwhelming that he committed, and violated federal campaign finance laws, the same law that landed his coconspirator in prison. and now with this attempted coup, i hope the department of justice, looks at all the evidence and they do whatever normal investigation they would do for anybody in america. because no one should be above the law. not the president, not the former president. >> you're right, we've heard a lot of democrats say that. i'm just looking for the action. so one last question, i'll ask you when asked cynthia moment ago. is merrick

we now know that jeffrey clark, a doj official, took him up on that. was he authored a letter to georgia state officials and the state officials of five other states, trying to implement donald trump's lie and undermine the election results. what that is, steph, the minute i saw that reporting about what jeff clark did, i thought now we have not only a conspiracy, 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 pres

. >> jeffrey clark, very senior department justice official was apparently getting ready to send letters 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 the election to our state legislatures to decide how to select our electors. and those are states controlled by republican legislatures. the road map is to say let the republican legislatures choose how the six states decide the el

can one of his deputies, jeffrey clark, tried to help trump subvert the 2020 election results, by telling leaders to insert doubt in the legitimacy of the results. we remember last month when the house oversight committee had handwritten notes by a.g. richard donahue between trump and d.o.j. officials. that pressured the officials to declare the 2020 election corrupt. quote to leave the rest to him and his congressional allies. chair of the judiciary committee senator dick durbin on cnn today, detailing the seven-hour meeting with rosen. >> he was being asked by the white house, the leadership of the white house, to meet with certain people who had wild, bizarre theories why the election wasn't valid. he refused to do it. i don't think history will be kind to mr. rosen. when he was initially appointed, i didn't think that was the case. >> as we learn more about trump's attempts to hold on to power, remember what he and others called themselves, the party of law and order. that's what republicans want these days. rubin writes, they pine for a strongman that can wield the power of the state

was particularly, and we have the revelations of jeffrey clark was an environmental and civil where was trying to do the acting attorney general he writes a cop that many -- noise to say we can throw out the election results in georgia and other places and lads to the letter he said quote, personally i see no valid downside to signing this letter. his letter so crazy, it's worse than the torture members than the bush administration. it's atrocious legal judgment and you want to know how crazy this letter was it was so case that even attending general barr didn't agree with that. we do need to get to the bottom of would happen and senator durbin's absolutely right. >> doctor patel, back to the subject of our ongoing pandemic. i wanna believe you a bit of a video put out today by senator ron paul, republican of kentucky. >> children are not at any more at risk from covid as they are from the seasonal flu. >> doctor, i am duty bound to point out this is the guy who hand delivered a trump letter to the kremlin to vladimir putin, and this is apparently an eye doctor who is known to traffic i

now we would like jeffrey clark to do the same. i'm not sure what we're going to find.we possibly can. but it's been an illumination from most of us to hear directly from jeffrey rosen what he went through. >> if the department of justice had in fact backed the idea of -- that there had been fraud, which there wasn't, in georgia and elsewhere, that's essentially as close to a coup or the beginnings of a coup as one can get in this country, wouldn't it be? >> well, it sure -- smacks of it from my point of view. sometime they take over the whole government and don't even mess around with the people with the titles. in this case, the former president, donald trump, was checking the boxes. he went to the courts. no luck. decided to go to the attorney general. put the pressure on. no luck. brought his mob scene down to the january 6th rally, turned them loose on the capital, i didn't work. he was trying every trick in the book. i'm not sure what was left. i'm glad he didn't try anymore. >> for people who wonder why these interviews are happening behind closed doors, you're s

i'm the head of the civil division. >> jeffrey clark also has become a focal point for congressional 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 declining to comment. wolf, we have learned that rosen and donahue in their testimony, they did detail

we know trump manoeuvred with jeffrey clark this lower level justice department officials to try to throw rosen rejected this garbage and we know that trump still called the election results bogus and illegal and supporting lawsuits in his fundraising even after his attorney general told him these lawsuits are going nowhere. we also know that out of the 11,780 votes and the next day dj park resigned we know a lot of stuff. we don't know why did pac resign and what were the contacts between trump and the justice department the full level of contacts and most importantly we don't know where the justice department right now stands on this. we don't know where merrick garland is doing about this. the justice department is investigating and prosecuting also of low level drug dealing across this country and here we have a huge crime imaginable and disenfranchising millions of people and we don't know where the justice department is. >> this might be the big one. they came really close there is an actual plot to overthrow a democratic election and they came really close. when i don't know is whe

this is more than cynical career but jeffrey clark. this demands accountability.ull-court press to try to overturn the election, to turn t overturn the democracy. there is no greater sin in our republic than that. >> thank you both. >>> next, shawntell brown defeating a progressive candidate that once said this about having to choose between biden and trump. >> you got two [ bleep ] in front of you and you got to pick one. >> well, was backing biden the key to brown's victory? she is next. >>> plus, new york governor andrew cuomo refusing to resign even though it now appears there are enough votes in the state assembly of new york to impeach him. is there any chance he leaves without being impeached? that delicious scramble was microwaved? get outta here. everybody's a skeptic. wright brothers? more like, yeah right, brothers! get outta here! it's not crazy. it's a scramble. just crack an egg. (burke) deep-sea driving, i see... (customer) something like that... (burke) well, here's something else: with your farmer's policy perk, new car replacement, you can get a

but now, jeffrey clark has become the focal point for congressional investigators. ified, he talked about five episodes work clark went out of the chain of command of doj to push these fraud claims. and trump and clark were indirect communication. that something totally out of the norm for officials other than the attorney general at doj. and we also know that in this testimony this weekend, rosen and donoghue told lynn lawmakers that trump, he never ordered them to do anything illegal and trump eventually accepted their advice. that doj could claim fraud when they have zero evidence of it but still, they remain a lot of questions about who else at the white house might have been part of this push to get doj involved in pushing these false election fraud claims, and potentially what other schemes might have been in the works. so erica, this might be the tip of the iceberg, what we've already seen come out, there needs to be a lot more testimony that the senators are pushing for in particular, they want to hear from jeffrey clark who's been at the center of this. >> w

a man named jeffrey clark who was sort of at the number three level at the justice department.yer 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 committee wants to speak with jeffrey clark about his interactions with t

jeffrey clark, the head of the civil division of th

jeffrey clark, the lawyer who was apparently willing to do his bidding.here? as congress looks into this, do you see the potential for either the former president or those around him trying to help him, do they have criminal ku culpability? >> i fall on senator blumenthal's side. i think there's criminality here that needs to be investigated by the justice department, but this is an important distinction. the report is that jeffrey rosen has been talking to congress, which can't bring criminal charges. they can refer it, but can't bring criminal charges. but also the justice department inspector general, however, the inspector general does not bring criminal charges either. they do internal discipline and review. so according to the reporting, jeffrey rosen is not talking to the part of doj that can bring criminal charges right now and that's where merit garland i think needs to step up. he needs to make sure there's a criminal investigation of this happening at doj. we don't see any evidence that that's happening as of yet. >> before we talk, let's inclu

>> well, it may have been more than just jeffrey clark. it may have been others in the trump orbit. vestigation going forward. >> do you have reason to believe it was more than clark? >> there is a lot of reason to believe that more individuals than just jeffrey clark participated in the scheme. and there is more than ample reason to think that some kind of criminal charges may be appropriate. >> will kind of charges? >> what kind of criminal charges ? >> well again i'm not going to go into the details at this point. we know that there is more than ample evidence to refer to the department of justice. at least for its consideration. at least i feel at this point. but the chairman of the committee, durbin, is going to make a decision about the witnesses going forward. and we should hear from them. but the american people also should see and hear all of these evidence that you've been asking about. >> you are an attorney. i have a guy that is the former attorney for the disc for connecticut. i don't understand what loss could have been broken or what people could be charged with. so ju

does jeffrey clark need to be investigated?kind of legal investigation into the president? >> the first thing that needs to happen is we need to realize, john, how close we came to a more successful coup. this last time around. the fact that there were people like jeff clark who were willing to carry out trump's dirty deeds and were willing to assault the 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 multip

you could weigh in on jeffrey clark's role here. a lot of people don't know who this person is.fted a letter and ac according to abc news that saw it, wanted to get georgia officials to essentially get together in a special session to effectively who would end up happening was to throw out the election results and he wrote in the letter that the doj had identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states dlu including the state of georgia which is false. >> more over, it is not just his role but the role of his supervisors or superiors who were already justice department officials pushed back on it as well. so this is not like these were deep state people career appointees who had trouble with this. this is also other political appointees. it is clear how egregious his conduct was. so what this said is that there is two big things that need to happen right now. number one, congress needs to investigate. i know that i believe the house over sight committee is already looking into this. there are a number of committees that could l

i would like to bring in jeffrey clark, for example.he heir apparent in trump's mind if rosen was not going to do his bidding. and rosen stood fast and didn't. so there was a tense period of time there at a moment when the president was going to put his own man as attorney general. >> i understand you're not ready to give me the details of what he said during those seven hours, but i guess the question, the key question is whether the former president, when he was still president, tried to get jeffrey rosen to overturn the election results. >> it was not that direct, but he was asking him to do certain things related to states, election returns, which he refused to do. he just said i'm not going to do that. he was being asked by the white house, leadership in the white house to meet with certain people who had these wild, bizarre theories of why the election wasn't valid and he refused to do it. i have to say, history is going to be very kind to mr. rosen when it's all over. when he was initially poappoint, i didn't think that was the c

jeffrey clark's like the guy who opens the monkey cage in the first five minutes of a zombie movie.magine 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 out front, by the way. this ham is delicious! usually i get my lunch meats from the boar's head!" [ laughter ] so happy to be back. it's easy to write off trump and his cronies as a bunch of idiot goofballs, which they were but they also had a real very real plan with key allies at the top levels of the white house, the justice department and state legislatures across the country. they came e

are telling our team that rosen and donahue focused on their interactions with trump but also jeffrey clarkd the chain of command at doj at least five times to push these false claims of fraud untron trump's behalf. clark insisted that chinese intelligence used special kinds of thermometers to change results in machines tallying votes, something that was false. and when the director of national intelligence at the time rebutted those claims in a briefing, 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 rosen, to back up his false claims of fraud. 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 afterno

we're hearing more each day about what trump ally jeffrey clark was doing, and this may be the most wild development. a bogus claim about special thermometers from china. take it away. >> right. you can't even say it with a straight face, right? but this is what he believed. jeffrey clark, the head of the civil division of the justice department in the closing days of the previous administration. he said that he had this information from his own secret sources that said the chinese intelligence had a special thermometer that could use to alter vote totals. the answer, of course, is they don't. but he asked his superiors in the justice department, joeff rosen and richard donoghue, to get a special classified briefing from the director of national intelligence to check this out. he went over for the briefing at the turn of the year, and was told that the intelligence showed there was no evidence that there was foreign interference that altered the vote total. something we've known. and he came away not convinced. he kept pushing this idea, and we know he helped try to orchestrate a coup in