Trump weighed firing acting AG to bring in loyalist
Reported meeting seen as part of campaign to set aside election results
In his last weeks in office, then-president Donald Trump weighed a plan to oust acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with a loyalist inside the Justice Department when Rosen refused to pursue Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud, a person familiar with the matter told USA TODAY.
The source, who was not authorized to comment publicly, said the plan, which Trump ultimately dropped, prompted remaining top Justice officials to threaten a mass resignation.
“Until the very end, the pressure never stopped; the pressure was real,” the source said, describing Trump’s efforts to coerce federal prosecutors to take up a campaign ultimately aimed at overturning the election of President Joe Biden.
The plan, first reported by The New York Times, entailed replacing Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, whom Trump had appointed to lead Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and who later served as acting chief of the Civil Division.
Had the effort proceeded, Clark, who had earlier raised concerns about voter fraud within the department, would have been in a position to act on Trump’s behalf to challenge election results in Georgia, where the president had previously pressured state officials.
Clark did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Times reported that Clark denied any role in an attempted ouster of Rosen.
“There was a candid discussion of options and pros and cons with the president,” Clark told the newspaper. “It is unfortunate that those who were part of a privileged legal conversation would comment in public about such internal deliberations, while also distorting any discussions.”
The president’s decision not to fire Rosen came after a White House meeting with Rosen and Clark, where they made their cases to him.
Two officials, according to the Times’ account, likened the White House meeting to an episode of “The Apprentice,” the reality show Trump hosted before entering the 2016 presidential race.
The episode marks another effort by Trump to use the power of the Justice Department to assert his political will.