Page:Introductory Material to the Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.pdf/39

 Department into the Presidential election on President Trump’s behalf and risk creating or exacerbating a constitutional crisis.

By this point, President Trump recognized that neither Rosen nor Donoghue would sign the letter or support his false election claims. Trump and his team then communicated further with Clark and offered him the job of Acting Attorney General. On January 2nd, Clark told Rosen that he “… would turn down the President’s offer if [Rosen] reversed [his] position and signed the letter” that he and Klukowski had drafted. The next day, Clark decided to accept and informed Rosen, who then called White House Counsel to seek a meeting directly with Trump. As Rosen put it, “… I wasn’t going to accept being fired by my subordinate, so I wanted to talk to the President directly.”

On January 3rd, that meeting was convened. Although contemporaneous White House documents suggest that Clark had already been appointed as the Acting Attorney General, all the participants in the meeting other than Clark and President Trump aggressively opposed Clark’s appointment.

At that point, Rosen decided to “broaden the circle” and ask that his subordinates inform all the other Assistant Attorneys General (AAGs) what was afoot. Rosen wanted to know how the AAGs would respond if Jeff Clark was installed as the Acting Attorney General. Pat Hovakimian, who worked for Rosen, then set up a conference call. The AAGs almost immediately agreed that they would resign if Rosen was removed from office.

Rosen, Donoghue, and Steve Engel, the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, attended the meeting. White House lawyers Pat Cipollone, Eric Herschmann and Pat Philbin joined as well.

When the meeting started, Clark attempted to defend his appointment. Clark declared that this was the “last opportunity to sort of set things straight with this defective election,” and he had the “intelligence,” the “will,” and “desire” to “pursue these matters in the way that the President thought most appropriate.” Everyone else present disagreed that Clark could conceivably accomplish these things.

White House Counsel Pat Cipollone threatened to resign as well, describing Clark’s letter as a “murder-suicide pact.” Cipollone warned that the letter would “damage everyone who touches it” and no one should have anything to do with it.

Trump asked Donoghue and Engel what they would do if Clark took office. Both confirmed they would resign. Steve Engel recalled that the President next asked if he would resign: "At some point, [] I believe Rich Donoghue said that senior Department officials would all resign if Mr. Clark were put in, and the President turned to me and said, ‘Steve, you wouldn’t resign, would you?’ I said, ‘Well, Mr. President, I’ve been with you through four Attorneys General, including two Acting Attorneys General, and I just couldn’t be part of this if Mr. Clark were here.’ And I said, ‘And I believe that the other senior Department officials would resign as well. And Mr. Clark would be here by himself with a hostile building, those folks who remained, and nothing would get done.’"