Former Justice Dept. lawyer cuts Jan. 6 deposition short
A former WASHINGTON — assistant attorney general who aligned himself with former President Donald Trump after he lost the 2020 election has declined to be fully interviewed by a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, ending a deposition after around 90 minutes Friday.
Jeffrey Clark, who championed Trump’s efforts to over- turn the election, presented the committee with a letter saying he would not answer questions based on Trump’s assertions of executive priv- ilege, including in an ongoing court case, according to a person familiar with the closed-door meeting who was granted anonymity to discuss it. Clark left the interview with his lawyer, who told reporters that they were heading “home.”
Clark, who was subpoe- naed by the committee to
appear, would not answer any questions from reporters as he departed.
A committee spokesman also declined to comment.
Clark’s refusal is just the latest fallout from Trump’s attempt to assert executive privilege in a lawsuit he filed against the committee and the National Archives. The suit aims to block the government from releasing a tranche of internal White House documents, including call logs, drafts of remarks, speeches and handwritten staff notes from before and during the insurrection. President Joe Biden has so far waived executive privilege on nearly all the doc- uments that the committee has asked for, citing the panel’s need to investigate the violent attack.
Amid the legal wrangling, the House panel has strug- gled to gain cooperation from some of Trump’s other top
allies — including his longtime associate Steve Bannon
and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — as it conducts a sweep- ing investigation outside of public view. The commit- tee has so far interviewed more than 150 witnesses so far, according to two people familiar with the interviews who requested anonymity because they were not autho- rized to discuss them.
The i nterviews have included a broad swath of former and current execu- tive branch officials, Trump campaign aides, law enforce- ment officials and others. The panel has also talked to several people who helped organize a rally the morn- ing of Jan. 6 where Trump told his supporters to “fight like hell.”
Clark is one of almost 20 people the committee has subpoenaed so far. A report issued by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee last month detailed how he championed Trump’s efforts to undo the election results and clashed as a result with Justice Department superiors who resisted the pres- sure, culminating in a dramatic White House meet- ing at which Trump rumi- nated about elevating Clark to attorney general. He did not do so after several aides threatened to resign.
The chairman of the House Jan. 6 committee, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, wrote in Clark’s subpoena that the committee’s probe “has revealed credible evidence that you attempted to involve the Department of Justice in efforts to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power” and his efforts “risked involving the Department of Justice in actions that lacked evidentiary foundation and threatened to subvert the rule of law.”
It is unclear whether the panel will move to hold Clark in contempt of Congress, as they did with Bannon. The House voted last month to recommend the charges against Bannon, and it is now up to the Justice Department to decide whether to prosecute.
As they voted to hold Bannon in contempt, lawmakers on the panel — including two Republicans — made clear they would fight any assertions of executive privilege, which was developed over the years to protect a president’s private conversations and communications. Thompson said then that the panel “won’t be deterred” by any such claims.