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Richard Donoghue, the Acting Deputy Attorney General at the time, and Jeffrey Rosen, the Acting Attorney General at the time, placed Jeffrey Clark, an environmental law chief appointed by Donald Trump in the Department of Justice, at the center of an extraordinary effort to help Trump is undermining the election results, including ousting his bosses who resisted Trump, according to the source.
Rosen spoke of numerous interactions with Clark, but much of his testimony was on five episodes where Clark exited the chain of command to push the fraud allegations. This included the January 3 meeting at the White House where Trump had the two men compete for the post of attorney general before deciding not to replace Rosen with Clark.
Clark’s attorney declined to comment on CNN.
Donoghue met with the committee for about five hours on Friday while Rosen met with them for over six hours on Saturday, the source said, adding that Rosen also met with Justice Department Inspector General investigators on Friday.
Three senators, Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, as well as Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina, sat throughout Saturday’s session, the source said. A total of nine Senators attended parts of Rosen’s interview, and the questions were bipartisan.
Blumenthal said he “was struck by the country’s proximity to total disaster” after listening to Rosen’s full closed-door testimony on Saturday.
“There were some very relevant and important facts. And just as important, some good leads on the direction the investigation can take,” Blumenthal told CNN’s Manu Raju.
Rosen and Donoghue both told investigators they were unsure whether Clark was acting at Trump’s behest or orchestrated a conspiracy he himself concocted. The men testified that in their interactions with Trump, he did not order them to do anything illegal and ultimately accepted their advice that the Justice Department could not take action to invoke fraud then that he had no proof.
Mysteries remain as to who Clark interacted with. In their Senate testimony, Clark’s bosses spoke about Clark’s discussions about interactions with Trump’s ally, Rep. Scott Perry, whom he called “General Perry.” Perry helped Clark connect with Trump, Perry said.
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