- New court filings show rancor within the DOJ over Trump's efforts to install a loyalist as acting attorney general.
- At least two top officials threatened to resign if Trump followed through, per deposition transcripts.
- One of those officials said that Trump's pick, Jeffrey Clark, would be leading a "graveyard."
The US House panel investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has shed further light on the deep discord within the upper ranks of the Justice Department during the dramatic final weeks of the Trump administration.
In a court filing Wednesday, the House committee presented evidence suggesting Trump and key allies engaged in crimes — including obstruction of Congress and defrauding the United States — in their attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The House panel raised those alleged criminal acts in a challenge to conservative lawyer John Eastman's refusal to provide emails related to his efforts to persuade former Vice President Mike Pence to reject Electoral College votes from states that then-President Elect Joe Biden had won.
But the filing included deposition transcripts that gave a more detailed view into how top Justice Department officials vehemently opposed Trump's plan to oust the acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen, and replace him with a longtime loyalist, Jeffrey Clark.
Multiple officials warned that there would be mass resignations if Trump followed through with his plan. One official cautioned that Clark would be leading a "graveyard" if appointed as acting attorney general.
Clark, a former Senate-confirmed head of the Justice Department's environmental division, supported Trump's election crusade. He had pushed for Rosen to sign a letter to legislatures in key battleground states informing them that the Justice Department was investigating purported voter irregularities related to the election.
The House committee — formally known as the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol — included transcripts of depositions of Rosen and his top deputy, Richard Donoghue, that showed how Trump's own appointees at the department concurred that the then-president's claims of widespread election fraud were nonsensical and "not supported by the evidence."
'No way I'm serving one minute under this guy'
In an October 2021 deposition, Donoghue recounted how discussions with Clark "got very confrontational at points." He also recalled delivering frank, unsparing assessments of Clark's competence — or lack thereof — to step in and lead the Justice Department.
Donoghue detailed an Oval Office meeting in which Trump asked how he would respond if Rosen were removed as acting attorney general and replaced by Clark, who was then the Senate-confirmed leader of the Justice Department's environmental division and acting head of the civil division.
"Sir, I would resign immediately. There is no way I'm serving 1 minute under this guy," Donoghue recalled saying.
But Donoghue, who previously served as the Trump-appointed US attorney in Brooklyn, New York, did not stop there. Donoghue told the House panel that he "made the point that Jeff Clark is not even competent to serve as the attorney general."
"He's never been a criminal attorney. He's never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. He's never been in front of a grand jury, much less a trial jury," Donoghue told the House committee, recounting the White House meeting.
Donoghue recalled in the House deposition that Clark defended his credentials by telling Trump he had done complicated appeals and handled civil and environmental litigation.
But Donoghue didn't buy it.
"That's right. You're an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we'll call you when there's an oil spill," Donoghue recounted saying, according to the deposition transcript.
In an earlier deposition with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Donoghue recalled telling Trump that he would resign if Clark was appointed acting attorney general. But he did not mention the "oil spill" remark or give as detailed a description of how he raised questions directly to Trump about Clark's competence.
Clark had suffered substantial reputational damage even before Wednesday's court filing from the scrutiny of his efforts to advance Trump's election fraud claims. The House committee voted to hold Clark in contempt of Congress after he refused to cooperate with the inquiry. After receiving a second chance to appear before the House panel, Clark invoked his 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination more than 100 times.
When the committee subpoenaed him, Clark suddenly disappeared from the website of New Civil Liberties Alliance, a conservative legal group that had celebrated his arrival in July as chief of litigation and director of strategy. Days earlier, the Senate Judiciary Committee released an interim report — titled "Subverting Justice" — on its own investigation into Trump and Clark's efforts.
In both depositions, Donoghue recounted warning Trump that Clark's appointment would set off a wave of resignations from the Justice Department. He said another top Justice Department official, Steve Engel, also told Trump he would resign if Clark was appointed acting attorney general.
"You would leave me no choice," Engel told Trump, according to Donoghue's retelling.
Before both the Senate Judiciary Committee and House January 6 committee, Donoghue also recalled a point Engel made as Trump weighed upending Justice Department leadership to bolster his false election fraud claims.
Engel pointed out, he said, that Clark would be leading a "graveyard" if Trump followed through with the appointment.
Trump never did.