Federal investigators carried out a pre-dawn search Wednesday at the home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, in connection with the department’s extensive criminal investigation into the subversion attempt. the 2020 election, people familiar with the matter and an associate of Mr. Clark said.
It’s not yet clear exactly what investigators may be looking for. But Mr. Clark was at the center of President Donald J. Trump’s unsuccessful bid in late 2020 to support the nation’s top prosecutors in backing his claims of election fraud and the probe. The review suggests that the criminal investigation may be moving closer to Mr. Trump.
The law enforcement action at Mr. Clark’s home in suburban Virginia comes just a day before the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. hold a hearing vividly and forcefully detailed Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department to help him reverse his election defeat.
The committee discovered Mr. Clark’s role especially in helping Mr. Trump try – ultimately unsuccessfully – to pressure the credit department over his baseless claims of election fraud and pressure officials in Georgia, an important pivot country, revisiting their certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr. win.
One of Mr. Clark’s associates described the striking scene early Wednesday morning when dozens of federal law enforcement officials raided the home, seized Mr. Clark’s electronic devices and brought him out. sugar in pajamas.
“All because Jeff felt it was appropriate to investigate voter fraud,” said associate, Russ Vought, who runs the Center for American Innovation, where Clark is a senior colleague. “This is not America, friends. The weaponization of the government must stop.”
Mr. Clark and his attorney declined to comment.
Clark’s home search is an important step in the Justice Department’s multi-year investigation into efforts to subvert the democratic process after the 2020 election.
In early spring, a separate part of the investigation was revealed when a grand jury subpoena was issued seeking information about a wide range of political organizers, White House aides, and members of Congress connected in various ways with Mr. Trump’s viral speech near the White House, directly before the Capitol storm.
Clark’s involvement in the investigation is also the latest sign that the department’s investigation has motivated Trump himself more than ever – and with some of his allies in Congress. Mr. Clark worked closely with Mr. Trump in the weeks leading up to the January 6 attack on the Capitol, when Mr. Trump’s options were over, to use the Justice Department as a tool to achieve his goals. its political goals.
Encouraged by members of Far-right Liberal House caucusesMr. Trump considered and then abandoned a plan in the days immediately before the January 6 attacks to put Mr. Clark in charge of the Department of Justice as acting attorney general.
Subject of House Committee Hearing on January 6
At the time, Clark was proposing to send a letter to Georgia state officials falsely claiming the department had evidence that could lead Georgia to revoke Biden’s certification of victory in that key battleground state. The effort was cut short by his superiors in the department.
Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has said little publicly about the criminal investigation other than that the Justice Department will monitor the matter. But he has come under pressure from some Democrats, including members of the House select committee, to hold Mr Trump and his allies accountable for their attempt to disrupt the transition. peaceful transfer of power.
The developments regarding Clark came to light as a federal grand jury sitting in Washington continued to issue subpoenas to people involved in a scheme involving Mr. Trump and his allies. to overturn the election: an attempt to disrupt the normal functioning of the constituency. processed by creating fake groups of pro-Trump electors in states where Mr. Biden has actually won.
In the past two days, according to several people familiar with the matter, at least nine people in four different states have received subpoenas related to the fake voter investigation. They are mostly people who have agreed to become electors for Mr. Trump himself or as aides for Mr. Trump’s campaign in the states where the plan is being implemented.
Among those receiving the subpoenas were Kelli Ward, the Arizona Republican chairwoman, and her husband, Michael, both of whom served as electors in Mr. someone familiar with the matter. Along with Wards, subpoenas were issued to two other pro-Trump electors in Arizona, Nancy Cottle and Loraine B. Pellegrino, the person said.
Their attorney, Alexander Kolodin, attacked the Justice Department’s fake voter investigation.
“This is an investigation based on allegations that our client engaged in a core First Amendment activity – petitioning Congress over grievances,” Mr. Kolodin said.
On Wednesday night, a local news outlet in Nevada reported yet another development in the fake voter investigation: Federal agents armed with search warrants seized the phone of Michael McDonald, the Nevada Republican chairman who was a former elector. Trump in the state. A search warrant has also been issued for the party’s secretary, James DeGraffenreid, who also participated in the scheme as a voter, the news agency reported.
Lawyers for Mr McDonald and Mr DeGraffenreid did not return phone calls on Thursday seeking comment.
While several state officials and Trump campaign aides have received subpoenas in the investigation of fake voters, the investigation is mainly focused on a group of attorneys who worked closely with Mr. Trump in bringing mechanism. Those attorneys include Rudolph W. Giuliani, who oversaw Mr. Trump’s challenges to the general election, and John Eastman, who advised the former president on creating fake electors, among other things.
Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Eastman featured prominently in hearings earlier this month by the House Select Committee. The two men, the committee found, were intimately involved in efforts to entice state officials to throw the election to Mr. Trump and in pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to give a hand. Mr. Trump a victory in the Electoral College.
At the committee’s final hearing, on Tuesday, investigators for the first time Directly linking Mr. Trump to the fake voter scheme. The committee introduced a recording from Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, in which she recounted how Trump called her and called Eastman “to talk about the importance of The RNC helps the campaign collect these. backup electorate. ”
Mr. Clark’s role in the effort to topple the election is thought to be most closely related to the pressure campaign against state officials to create pro-Trump electors.
In late December 2020, Mr. Clark, while serving as acting head of the civil division of the Justice Department, helped draft a letter to Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia claiming – without evidence – that the Justice Department had identified “substantial concerns” about the “results of the election” in Georgia and several other states.
The letter advised Mr Kemp, a Republican, to call a special session of his state General Assembly to create “a separate group of electors supporting Donald J. Trump”.
Mr. Clark pressured then-acting attorney general Jeffrey A. Rosen to sign and mail the letter to Mr. Kemp, but Mr. Rosen refused.
Mr. Rosen was among former Justice Department officials who testified about Mr. Clark before the House committee at Thursday’s hearing.
Katie Benner contribution report.
