As we discussed earlier, at the center of Mr. Clark's plan to undue president Trump's election loss was a letter.
Q: Mr. Donoghue, on December 28th, Mr. Clark emailed you and Mr. Rosen a draft letter that he wanted you to sign and send to Georgia's state officials. You testified that this could have "grave constitutional consequences." Mr. Donoghue, could you tell us what you meant by that?
A: I had to read both the email and the attached letter twice to make sure I really understood what he was proposing because it was so extreme to me, I had a hard time getting my head around it initially. But I read it, and I did understand it for what he intended. I had to sit down and sort of compose what I thought was an appropriate response. I actually went next door to the acting AG's office, but he was not there. We were both on the email. I knew we would both have probably a similar reaction. He was not in his office so I returned to my office and I sat down to draft a response because I felt it was very important to give a prompt response rejecting this out of hand. In my response, I explained a number of reasons this is not the DoJ's role to suggest or dictate to state legislatures how they should select their electors. But more importantly, this is not based on fact. This was actually contrary to the facts as developed by our investigations over the last several weeks and months. So I responded to that and to the DoJ to insert itself into the political process this way, I think would have had grave consequences for the country. It may very well have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis and I wanted to make sure he understood the gravity of the situation because he didn't seem to really appreciate it.
Q: And what was Mr. Clark's reaction when you sent this email to him?
A: He didn't respond directly to the email, but we met shortly after that. After I sent the email, the acting AG returned. I went to his office. He had just read it and he had a very similar reaction to me. He was exasperated and he told me that he had told one of his administrative assistants to get Jeff Clark up here. We want to talk to him face to face about this. So the three of us planned a meeting probably about 1800 that night in the deputy AG's office.
Q: And one of the things that you said to Mr. Clark is, "What you are doing is nothing less than the US DoJ meddling in the outcome of a presidential election." And I assume you conveyed that to him as well in your meeting that evening?
A: Yes, in those very words. It was a very contentious meeting, but yes that was said amongst other things.
Q: Despite this contentious meeting, and your strong reaction to the letter, did Mr. Clark continue to push his concept in the coming days?
A: He did, yes. We had subsequent meetings and conversations. The acting AG probably had more contact with him than I did, but between the 28th and the 2nd, we had another in-person meeting. He clearly continued to move down this path. He began calling witnesses and apparently conducting investigations of his own. He got a briefing from ENI(???) about purported foreign intelligence interference. We thought, perhaps once it was explained to him, that there was no basis for that part of his concern, that he would retreat. Instead, he doubled down and said "Well, Ok, so there's no foreign interference. I still think there are enough allegations out there that we should go ahead and send this letter," which shocked me even more than the initial one because you would think after a couple days of looking(?) this, he, like we, would have come to the same conclusion that it was completely unfounded.
Q: When you learned that he had been calling witnesses and conducting investigations on his own, did you confront him?
A: Yes.
Q: And what was his reaction?
A: He got very defensive. As I said, there were a series of conversations through that week. I certainly remember specifically the conversation meeting on January 2nd that got even more confrontational, but he was defensive and similar to his earlier reaction when they said this is nothing less than the DoJ meddling in an election, his reaction was "I think a lot of people have meddled in this election." So, he kinda clung to that and then spewed out some of these theories, some of which we've heard from the president. Others were floating around the internet in media. And he kept insisting that the DoJ needed to act and needed to send those letter.
Rep Cheney: The committee has also learned that Mr. Clark was working with another attorney at the DoJ named Ken Klukowski who drafted this letter to Georgia with Mr. Clark. Mr. Klukowski had arrived to the department on December 15th with just 36 days left until the inauguration. He was specifically assigned to work under Jeff Clark. Mr. Klukowski also worked with John Eatman, who we showed you at our hearing last week was one of the primary architects of president Trump's scheme to overturn the election. The Georgia letter that we've been discussing specifically talks about some of Dr. Eastman's theories, including (she reads from the Jeffrey Clark letter):
Rep. Cheney (continued): But he's also learned that the relationship between Dr. Eastman and Mr. Klukowski persisted after Mr. Klukowski joined the DoJ.
Email recommending that Dr. Eastman and Dr. Klukowski brief vice president Pence and his staff: Other recipients of this email included the chief of staff to congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX). https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/8/2/AABjoOAADYAu.jpg