The panel voted to pursue contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who refused to answer the committee’s questions.
over documents and interviews, arguing that his private conversations and actions at the time should be shielded from public view. As the current officeholder, President Biden has so far rejected Trump’s claims.
In a transcript of Clark’s aborted Nov. 5 interview released by the panel Tuesday, staff and members of the committee attempted to persuade the former Justice Department official to answer questions about his role as Trump pushed the department to investigate hisin the election. Clark had become an ally of the former president as other Justice officials pushed back on the baseless claims. But Clark’s attorney, Harry MacDougald, said during the interview that Clark was protected not only by Trump’s assertions of executive privilege but also by several other privileges MacDougald claimed Clark should be afforded. The committee rejected those arguments, and MacDougald and Clark walked out of the interview after around 90 minutes of discussions. According to a report earlier this year by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which interviewed several of Clark’s colleagues, Trump’s pressure on the Justice Department culminated in a dramatic White House meeting at which the president ruminated about elevating Clark to attorney general. He did not do so after several aides threatened to resign. Despite Trump’s false claims about a stolen election — the primary motivation for the violent mob that broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Biden’s victory — the results were confirmed by state officials and upheld by the courts. Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, said in December 2020 that the Justice DepartmentThompson wrote in Clark’s subpoena that the committee’s probe “has revealed credible evidence that you attempted to involve the Department of Justice in efforts to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power” and his efforts “risked involving the Department of Justice in actions that lacked evidentiary foundation and threatened to subvert the rule of law.” Lawmakers on the Jan. 6 panel have vowed to hold any witness who doesn’t comply in contempt as they investigate the. On Wednesday, Thompson said Clark has left them with no other choice. “He chose this path,” Thompson said. “He knew what consequences he might face if he did so. This committee and this House must insist on accountability in the face of that sort of defiance.”
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