[ad_1]
Former President Donald Trump may not be the person “pulling the strings” behind efforts to push Justice Department officials to challenge 2020 election results, a Senate investigator admitted on Sunday democrat.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, appeared on NBC News’ Meet the Press to discuss the interim report released last week by his panel on the DOJ lobbying campaign.
“We have a very complete picture of the extent to which Trump was personally involved in this,” the Rhode Island Democrat told host Chuck Todd.
“It’s a question where you can actually connect the President of the United States to the project,” Whitehouse said. He also noted Trump’s focus on allegations of electoral fraud in Georgia, where a separate investigation is examining whether the former president and his allies broke state law.
MARK MEADOWS ON FBI INFORMANT IN CAPITOL RIOT’S CROWD: “THERE IS A LOT THAT MUST GO OUT”
But Whitehouse said the question of who actually organized the program remains unclear.
The senator referred to the fact that Trump would replace Jeffrey Rosen, his acting attorney general, with Jeffrey Clark, another DOJ official who drafted a proposal to intervene in Georgia’s certification process and raised doubts about the election results in other states. The scenario never materialized after Trump learned at a meeting in early January at the Oval Office that senior Justice Department officials and White House attorney Pat Cipollone would resign if he put in implement the plan.
“What we don’t know is who was really behind it all,” Whitehouse said. “The text of the transcript and the English body of witnesses suggest that they had very little regard for this character Jeffrey Clark, who would nominally be the new attorney general. They even doubted his qualifications for the role.”
“So it’s a possibility, I guess, that he saw that moment and grabbed it, but it’s an equally real possibility that he is a cog in a bigger machine and we have a lot of work to be done to understand how this machine went through this period, who was behind it, where the money came from and what happened, “he added.
Todd insisted on that, asking, “And you think it’s someone other than Donald Trump? I mean – you know when I hear that you’re basically saying you think he is someone else involved, someone else is pulling the strings. Who could this be next to Donald Trump? “
Whitehouse said Senate investigators, who are cooperating with the Jan.6 House special committee, do not yet have a clear opinion on the matter.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE ABOUT THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We don’t know yet, but, you know, this guy jumped into a black money business. So he was taken in, Jeffrey Clark. There was a lot of activity around that with the members. There is just a lot to learn, “he added.
Clark, who was the head of the Civil Division of the Department of Justice during the Trump administration, has since been hired by the New Civil Liberties Alliance as the legal officer and director of strategy for the conservative civil rights group.
He refused to sit for a voluntary interview, according to the report of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Dick Durbin, panel chair, a asked the DC Bar to investigate Clark.
The Senate Judiciary Committee’s 394-page report, which was based on testimony from former officials and documents, prompted a rebuttal document from the GOP that insists the available evidence shows Trump followed the advice and recommendations from his senior advisers and did not use the Justice Department to reverse President Joe Biden’s victory.
Washington Examiner Videos
Key words: News, Congress, Sheldon Whitehouse, Donald Trump, Department of Justice
Original author: Daniel Chaitin
Original location: Whitehouse admits Trump may not be mastermind of DOJ’s plan to overturn election
[ad_2]
Source link