From the AP:
The Jan. 6 committee will hear from former Justice Department officials who faced down a relentless pressure campaign from Donald Trump over the 2020 presidential election results while suppressing a bizarre challenge from within their own ranks.
The hearing Thursday will bring attention to a memorably turbulent stretch at the department as Trump in his final days in office sought to bend to his will a law enforcement agency that has long cherished its independence from the White House. The testimony is aimed at showing how Trump not only relied on outside advisers to press his false claims of election fraud but also tried to leverage the powers of federal executive branch agencies.
The witnesses will include Jeffrey Rosen, who was acting attorney general during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. Three days earlier, Rosen was part of a tense Oval Office showdown in which Trump contemplated replacing him with a lower-level official, Jeffrey Clark, who wanted to champion Trump’s bogus election fraud claims.
And CNN:
Thursday's hearing before the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection turns the panel's focus toward how former President Donald Trump tried to use the Justice Department to bolster his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Three top officials who led the Justice Department in the final days of the Trump administration will testify at Thursday's hearing about how the then-President and his allies sought to enlist the department to give their baseless fraud allegations credibility and how Trump considered replacing the acting attorney general with an official who bought into his claims of fraud, according to committee aides.
And:
Former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue and the head of the Office of Legal Counsel Steven Engel will testify on Thursday.
These are names here are important:
- Jeffrey Rosen
- Jeffrey Clark
- Richard Donoghue
When have we seen them before?
Well, they all show up in the subpoena issued to Rep Scott Perry in May:
Among other topics, we are examining issues relating to an effort by former President Trump and others to install Mr. Jeffrey Clark in the days before January 6, 2021, as acting Attorney General of the United States. In the weeks before January 6th, then-President Trump’s appointees at the Justice Department informed the President repeatedly that his claims of election fraud were not supported by the evidence, and that the election was not, in fact, stolen. Then-President Trump considered appointing Jeffrey Clark as acting Attorney General, as Mr. Clark pressed his Department of Justice superiors to use agency authorities to challenge the election results.
And:
We have received evidence from multiple witnesses that you had an important role in the efforts to install Mr. Clark as acting Attorney General. Acting Attorney General Rosen and acting Deputy Attorney General Donoghue have provided evidence regarding these issues, and we have received evidence that others who worked with Mr. Clark were aware of these plans. We are also aware that you had multiple text and other communications with President Trump’s former Chief of Staff regarding Mr. Clark—and we also have evidence indicating that in that time frame you sent communications to the former Chief of Staff using the encrypted Signal app. Mr. Clark has informed us that he plans to invoke his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in anticipation of a deposition to be conducted by the Committee. When Mr. Clark decided to invoke his 5th Amendment rights, he understood that we planned to pose questions addressing his interactions with you, among a host of other topics.
Scott Perry, in case you didn't know, represents Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.
The Hill reported sometime ago that:
An otherwise little-known figure in the Justice Department, Clark was introduced to Trump by Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), another person the Senate Committee recommended the House focus on. [Emphasis added.]
And as we're on the subject of Trump's pressure campaign on DOJ, we should note that these names (Rosen, Clark, Donoghue AND Perry ) show up in that now-infamous Trump/DOJ phone call.
That's the call, memorialized in Donoghue's notes where Trump said:
Don't expect you do do that, just say the election was was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen.
This was a response to DOJ saying that it couldn't just snap its fingers and overturn the election.
The "R. Congressmen" in this exchange included Rep Scott Perry, the man who introduced Jeffrey Clark to Donald Trump.
But in that phone call Donald Trump also mentions another Pennsylvania politician.
State Senator (and GOP candidate for PA Gov) Doug Mastriano.
My transcript of Donoghue's notes:
DAG Call - on w/ POTUS + wants to conference me in
P - Country is up in arms over the corruption
Scott Perry (PA) + Senator from PA - Guy Mastriano - some of the (many?) calling
At the time I noted that:
Since the reference is to a "Senator from PA" it's easy to assume Trump meant State Senator Doug Mastriano rather than Pennsylvania Representative Guy Reschenthaler.What to listen for in today's January 6 Committee hearing. (Among many other things) the names:
- Scott Perry
- Doug Mastriano
So just how deeply are they involved in Trump's plot?
