Clark is now a major figure in the narrative being written in documents and testimony from former Justice Department officials who were forced to fight off his efforts to orchestrate a coup of leadership at the Justice Department and use it to help the former President.
A stark portrayal of Clark is emerging from former Trump-appointed officials who were alarmed by his backchannel efforts to the White House and to Trump allies, and who now are now providing testimony to congressional committees. Richard Donoghue, acting deputy attorney general beginning in late December, provided a closed-door interview to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday. Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney Ggeneral at the time, is set to provide testimony in the coming days. A new House select committee examining events surrounding the January 6 Capitol attack also plans to ask for testimony from them and other witnesses.
By late December, as Trump and his allies pushed conspiracies about alleged irregularities that he claimed stole the election from him, Clark told senior Justice officials that he knew of sensitive information that indicated Chinese intelligence used special kinds of thermometers to change results in machines tallying votes, people briefed on the matter said. The Justice Department by then had made clear it found no evidence of vote-changing in the election.
On Monday, December 28, Clark — who also became assistant attorney general for the Justice civil division as top officials left in the waning months of the administration — sent an unusual email to his bosses asking them to allow him to have a classified briefing, according to people briefed on the matter.
At Rosen’s request, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe provided the briefing, which drew on classified findings not yet public that showed there was no evidence that foreign interference had affected vote tallies. Rosen and other officials had acceded to his request for a classified briefing out of belief it could put a stop to his unfounded claims of election fraud, according to some of the sources.
While the intelligence community did find that China and Iran had developed a preference for Biden, and Iran in particular had taken steps intended to undercut Trump’s reelection prospects, those efforts were characterized in a much different way than Russia’s multi-faceted interference campaign.
During the briefing, Clark expressed skepticism not of Ratcliffe’s personal motives, but the analysis from the intelligence community that he was presenting, the source added. Clark believed some intelligence…
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