August 3, 2023

One Thing To Remember About Jeffrey Clark (Pennsylvania Edition)

Ok, let's start here:

Donald Trump’s team was aware that, if he refused to leave office after the 2020 election, it could spark a mass wave of civil unrest. But the man Trump sought to appoint as attorney general had an easy answer for that, according to the new indictment of the former president: invoke the Insurrection Act.

The indictment lists six as-of-yet unindicted co-conspirators. Co-Conspirator 4 is described as “a Justice Department official who…attempted to use the Justice Department to open sham election crime investigations and influence state legislatures with knowingly false claims of election fraud.” The indictment later refers to this individual as the man Trump intended to put “in charge of the Justice Department.” The description matches Jeffrey Clark.

And:

This same Deputy White House Counsel now “tried to dissuade” Co-Conspirator 4 from taking the post of Acting Attorney General. The counsel again made clear his conviction that there had not been meaningful fraud in the election. And he warned that there would be “riots in every major city in the United States” if Trump attempted to remain in office, against the will of the electorate.

Co-Conspirator 4 had an answer for the Deputy White House Counsel, the indictment alleges, that was equally disturbing and glib: “Well,” he said, “that’s why there’s an Insurrection Act.”

Connecting the dots, that's what Jeffrey Clark said. Rolling Stone sums it up:

But the current indictment alleges that the Insurrection Act was considered as a means to use the power of the military — or perhaps even informal militias — to suppress the righteous outrage of American voters at the theft of an election — by the thief himself, with the guidance and cheer-leading of his hand-picked lackey at the Department of Justice. 

And here's the thing for Pennsylvanians to keep in mind whenever they see the name Jeffrey Clark pop up in the discussion of Trump's coup attempt;

Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry introduced Clark to Trump:

The President raised, among others, debunked claims about voting machines in Michigan, a truck driver who allegedly moved ballots from New York to Pennsylvania, and a purported election fraud at the State Farm Arena in Georgia.None of the allegations were credible, and Rosen and Donoghue said so to the President.At one point during the December 27th call in which Donoghue refuted President Trump’s fraud allegations, Donoghue recorded in handwritten notes a request President Trump made specifically to him and Acting Attorney General Rosen: “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen.”Donoghue explained: “[T]he Department had zero involvement in anyone’s political strategy,” and “he wanted us to say that it was corrupt.”“We told him we were not going to do that.”

At the time, neither Rosen nor Donoghue knew the full extent to which Republican Congressmen, including Representative Scott Perry, were attempting to assist President Trump to overturn the election results.

The Committee’s investigation has shown that Congressman Perry was working with one Department of Justice official, Jeffrey Clark, regarding the stolen election claims. Perry was working with Clark and with President Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows with this goal: to enlist Clark to reverse the Department of Justice’s findings regarding the election and help overturn the election outcome.

After introducing Clark to the President, Perry sent multiple text messages to Meadows between December 26th and December 28th, pressing that Clark be elevated within the Department. Perry reminded Meadows that there are only “11 days to 1/6.... We gotta get going!,” and, as the days went on, one asking, “Did you call Jeff Clark?”

 Jeff Clark was where he was because Scott Perry got him there.

Something for every Pennsylvanian to remember.