Page:Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/428

 Donoghue objected, saying Pak had "been doing his job." But the President insisted, pointing out that Pak criticized him years earlier. "This guy is a Never Trumper," the President reiterated. "He should never have been in my administration to begin with. How did this guy end up in my administration?" The President threatened to fire Pak. When Donoghue pointed out that Pak was already planning to resign the next day, a Monday, President Trump insisted that it be Pak's last day on the job. Pak later confirmed to Donoghue that he would be leaving the next day.

President Trump asked if those in attendance at the Oval Office meeting knew Bobby Christine, who was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia. Even though Pak had a first assistant, who was next in line for Pak's job upon his resignation, President Trump wanted Christine to take the role. Christine did take over for Pak, but he did not find any evidence of fraud either. It was Donoghue's impression that Christine "concluded that the election matters . . . were handled appropriately."

Later in the evening of January 3rd, President Trump called Donoghue to pass along yet another conspiracy theory. The President had heard that an ICE agent outside of Atlanta was in custody of a truck filled with shredded ballots. Donoghue explained that ICE agents are part of the Department of Homeland Security, so the matter would be under that Department's purview. President Trump asked Donoghue to inform Ken Cuccinelli. That story—like all the others—turned out to be fiction when DOJ investigators evaluated the claim. The truck was carrying shredded ballots, but they were from a previous election. The old ballots had been shredded to make room for storing ballots from the 2020 election.

The most senior DOJ officials at the end of President Trump's term stopped him from co-opting America's leading law enforcement agency for his own corrupt purposes. Recall that Attorney General Barr commented "you can't live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that the election—that there was fraud in the election.

Richard Donoghue concluded that Jeffrey Clark's letter "may very well have spiraled us into a constitutional crisis."

Jeffrey Rosen summed up his short time as the Acting Attorney General like this: