Government

Trump DOJ Lawyer Jeffrey Clark Can't Talk About What He Did At Work Without Incriminating Himself

It's not a great look.

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Fifth AmendmentCNN reports that Jeffrey Clark asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination upwards of 100 times on Wednesday when he finally testified before the January 6 Select Committee.

Clark, the former acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, was at the center of a plot to announce investigations of non-existent voter fraud in the swing states as a pretext for swing state legislators to recast Electoral College votes from Biden to Trump. When acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue refused to send out Clark’s December 28, 2020 “Georgia Proof of Concept” letter, Clark maneuvered to get Rosen fired and make himself acting AG so he could put the plan into action. Trump was only dissuaded from doing it because the entire upper echelon of both the DOJ and White House Counsel’s Office threatened to quit.

What happened here is really not in dispute. Aside from voluminous public reporting, the Senate Judiciary Committee already issued a 394-page report on the events. Rosen, Donoghue, and even Bill Barr already testified about it to both the House and the Senate. The only question was how Clark was going to play it. And the answer was badly.

Clark initially refused to testify or hand over any documents citing executive privilege. Then Trump sent a letter to the Committee saying that he wasn’t invoking privilege for Rosen, Clark, Donoghue, and former US Attorney in Atlanta BJay Pak, but he would invoke it in the future if the Committee subpoenaed any other witnesses. At which point every other witness hightailed it to the Rayburn Building to get their stories out before things got any more complicated.

But Clark’s counsel insisted that the subsequent subpoenas amounted to an automatic snap back invocation of executive privilege, despite his client having no further communication with Donald Trump or indication that the former president was taking steps to invoke it. On November 5, Clark appeared before the Committee with a 12-page letter explaining his, umm, creative position and refusing to answer any questions.

Unsurprisingly, this infuriated the Committee, which had been negotiating with Clark for month. And that’s how the former Kirkland & Ellis partner found himself referred for contempt of congress.

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But at long last Clark has finally done what he should have done in the first place: He showed up, and he shut the hell up. Because as bad as it looks to plead the Fifth about what you did at your federal government job, admitting that you participated in an attempt to overthrow the government is probably worse.

But even that might not save him, because, as Rep. Zoe Lofgren told CNN, “one of the options the committee needs to look at is whether we provide use immunity to Mr. Clark.”

It’s a sticky wicket, one that Clark will no doubt navigate with his usual good judgment and legal aplomb.

Former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark pleaded the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times in January 6 committee interview [CNN]

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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