Page:CTRL0000034600 - Transcribed Interview of Richard Peter Donoghue, (Oct. 1, 2021).pdf/21

21 And this was creating problems because you had U.S. attorneys who want to investigate things and their own assistants saying, well, we're not going to do it because ECB is not concurring. And then you had a parallel problem within FBI because ECB coordinated with FBI's public corruption branch in Washington, and the public corruption branch in FBI was very reluctant to go forward with anything without ECB's concurrence. And so, even if you had FBI leadership in the field saying we ought to investigate this, again, their own agents would say, well, we can't go forward because public corruption branch says ECB won't approve.

So there was definitely conflict here between the AG's approach and ECB's approach. There's merit to both approaches. I get that. But the AG made a decision based on the unusual facts and circumstances that we found ourselves in, and even after he made that decision, there was what I would describe as foot dragging by ECB and others with regard to this approach that the AG wanted to take.

I see. Okay. So summary: AG Barr authorized U.S. attorneys explicitly on November 9th to go ahead and conduct investigations of allegations of election fraud rather than wait until the results were certified, as had been the prior practice and ECB as the gatekeeper?

Generally, that's right, and he gives some guidance in the memo itself as to what would or would not warrant any sort of Federal investigation.

All right. What was your role then, Mr. Donoghue, going forward as the PADAG in terms of U.S. attorney investigations of allegations of election fraud? What role did you specifically in your office play as those after the memo was issued, those investigations moved forward?

So, even prior to the memo, as the PADAG, I had a tremendous amount of interaction with the U.S. attorneys. That is in part because of the role, of course, but