Page:CTRL0000034600 - Transcribed Interview of Richard Peter Donoghue, (Oct. 1, 2021).pdf/126

126 I made the point that Jeff Clark is not even competent to serve as the Attorney General. He's never been a criminal attorney. He's never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. He's never been in front of a grand jury, much less a trial jury.

And he kind of retorted by saying, "Well, I've done a lot of very complicated appeals and civil litigation, environmental litigation, and things like that." And I said, "That's right. You're an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we'll call you when there's an oil spill."

And so it got very confrontational at points.

And Pat Cipollone weighed in at one point, I remember, saying, you know, "That letter that this guy wants to send, that letter is a murder-suicide pact. It's going to damage everyone who touches it. And we should have nothing to do with that letter. I don't ever want to see that letter again." And so we went along those lines.

I remember Eric Herschmann chimed in several times, saying that, whatever Jeff Clark wanted to do or thought he could do, there was no reason to think he could really do it.

I remember saying at some point that, you know, Jeff wouldn't even know how to find his way to Chris Wray's office, much less march in there and direct the FBI what to do, and that, if you walked into Chris Wray's office, he wouldn't even know who you are. So we had these conversations that went around and around and were very blunt and direct. And that went on for 2-1/2 hours.

At one point, did the President disparage Mr. Rosen or talk about Mr. Rosen's inaction or unwillingness to do anything about the election?

He did say several times, "You two," pointing at Mr. Rosen and me, "You two haven't done anything. You two don't care. You haven't taken appropriate actions. Everyone tells me I should fire you," and things of that nature.