richard donoghue: i think so. yes. disturbed by the letter, donoghue immediately responded to clark writing, "this would be a grave step for the department to take and it could have tremendous constitutional, political and social ramifications for the country". i had to make it clear to him that there was no world in which i, and certainly the ag, were going to sign a letter like that. jake tapper: rosen and donoghue met with clark later that evening. richard donoghue: i do remember at the very end sayingng to him what you are proposing is nothing less than having the united states justice department meddle in the outcome of an american presidential election. jake tapper: but again, jeffrey clark ignored the direction of justice department leadership. he continued to claim, falsely, that there was widespread election fraud. he pushed to send out the letter again. and on january 3rd, he told rosen president trump had offered him the role of attorney general and he had accepted. richard donoghue: that led to a series of d

day after barr left, trump would call jeffrey rosen at the justice department or his deputy, richard donoghues narrative that there were serious questions about the integrity of the election. >> mr. donoghue, you had a conversation with the president where he raised false claim after false claim with you and mr. rosen. how did you respond to what you called a "stream of allegations"? >> i wanted to try to cut through the noise, because it was clear to us that there were a lot of people whispering in his ear, feeding him these conspiracy theories and allegations, as the president went through them, i went piece by piece to say, "no, that's false, that is not true." and to correct him, really, in a serial fashion as he moved from one theory to another. >> how did the president respond to that, sir? >> he responded very quickly and said, essentially, "that's not what i'm asking you to do. "what i'm just asking you to do is just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen." ♪ ♪ >> he's saying, "don't care about evidence, "don't care about facts, just say this. "and