Page:CTRL0000034600 - Transcribed Interview of Richard Peter Donoghue, (Oct. 1, 2021).pdf/94

94 on the evening of the 30th. And my notes reflect what happened there. It was on speakerphone in the Deputy Attorney General's Office. I was sitting there for the entire conversation. Essentially, the gist of it is that Mr. Olsen wanted to know whether or not the Department was going to file this complaint against the States. And the DAG said flat out: I'm not going to discuss that with you. We have your draft. We're looking at it. We have questions about this theory. For example, whether the United States would ever have standing to bring such a claim. And we're having our experts in OSG and the Civil Division looking at it. But I'm not going to discuss that with you. You're private counsel, and it's not appropriate for the Justice Department to be discussing what it may or may not do with outside counsel.

Is there a discussion then about who Mr. Olsen represents?

Yes. He said: I'm acting at the direction of the President which I wrote it down as a quote. His role wasn't entirely clear to us so that the Deputy AG asked him: Is he your client?

And he gave a curious response. He said: I have made my representation to you on that.

I don't know if that meant he was his client or not, but he said he would be reporting back to the President on the conversation. And the DAG said: You can report to whoever you want. We're not going to discuss this with you.

And then Mr. Olsen ended it by saying: This is a historic moment. The election has been stolen. We need to act to save the Republic.

And the Deputy AG said, "Look, we understand your perspective; we'll make our own decision on this; it's not appropriate for us to discuss this with you," and hung up the phone.

All right. So a similar question here, Mr. Donoghue, to what I asked you