Page:CTRL0000034600 - Transcribed Interview of Richard Peter Donoghue, (Oct. 1, 2021).pdf/78

78 afterward, and he was very upset by Jeff Clark's request. And he said that he had instructed one of his administrative support personnel to get Jeff Clark in his conference room. He was—he was a little angry. And he said: I want him down here. We need to talk to this guy and find out what's going on.

So I think there's some emails that show up.

Yeah. And I don't want to jump ahead too much, Mr. Donoghue, because I want to get to that conversation. But let's go back to Mr. Clark's email. The first thing he asks of you is: I would like to have your authorization—"you" meaning you and Mr. Rosen—to get a classified briefing tomorrow from ODNI led by DNI Ratcliffe on foreign election interference issues. And he mentions activating the IEEPA and 2018 EO powers about the Dominion machine access to the internet through a smart thermostat with a net connection trail leading back to China. He is essentially asking if you can get a briefing about this allegation of Chinese control of Dominion machines through a thermostat. Did that strike you as odd, and what was your reaction to that specific request?

Yes, it struck me as odd. I won't go into details, but we received briefing about what the IC, the intelligence community, knew about the election in advance. This was inconsistent with what we had been told. And I had not heard anything about smart thermostats and internet connections leading back to China and things like that. So the whole thing struck me as very odd.

Yeah, and that Mr. Clark, the head—acting head of the Civil Division is asking for a classified briefing with the Director of National Intelligence about this allegation. That also procedurally was odd?

Yes.

Okay. He also then—the second ask is this draft letter, which I believe is