DOJ Weaponization: Attempted Installation of Jeffrey Clark to Overturn 2020 Election
Tier 3Averted2020-12-14 to 2021-01-06
Factual Summary
Following Attorney General William Barr's resignation on December 14, 2020, Donald Trump escalated his pressure campaign against the Department of Justice by attempting to use the department's leadership and official letterhead to advance false claims of election fraud and induce state legislatures to appoint alternative slates of presidential electors. The central mechanism was Trump's plan to remove Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and replace him with Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer with no criminal law experience who was willing to send letters to contested states asserting that the DOJ had found significant election irregularities. The scheme was averted only when senior DOJ officials threatened mass resignation.
**The Rosen-Donoghue Refusals**
After Barr departed, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue received repeated requests from Trump and his allies to take specific legal actions in support of the claim that the 2020 election had been fraudulently decided. According to handwritten notes taken by Donoghue on December 27, 2020, and later obtained by congressional investigators, Trump told senior DOJ officials in a phone call: "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen." Donoghue's contemporaneous notes were released by the House Judiciary Committee and authenticated during congressional testimony.
On other occasions, Trump pressed Rosen and Donoghue to file a brief with the Supreme Court challenging election results in multiple states, to appoint a special counsel to investigate election fraud, and to publicly declare the election illegitimate. Rosen and Donoghue refused each of these requests. No evidence of systemic fraud sufficient to affect the outcome existed in the DOJ's files, and Donoghue documented his written response to Clark's draft letter stating: "We simply do not currently have a basis to make such a statement."
**The Clark Draft Letter**
Jeffrey Clark had been in separate contact with Trump outside the normal DOJ chain of command. On December 28, 2020, Clark circulated a draft letter addressed to Georgia's governor and legislative leaders stating that the DOJ had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia." The letter urged the Georgia legislature to convene a special session and consider appointing an alternative slate of electors. Clark intended to send similar letters to other contested states. The letter's core factual premise was false. Donoghue told Clark directly and in writing that the DOJ had not identified evidence sufficient to support such a claim.
Trump learned of Clark's willingness to send the letters and, on December 26 or 27, offered Clark the position of acting attorney general. Clark indicated he would accept the position if given authority to send the letters.
**The January 3 Oval Office Meeting**
On the evening of January 3, 2021, Trump summoned Rosen, Donoghue, Clark, and senior White House and DOJ lawyers to the Oval Office for a meeting that lasted approximately two to three hours. White House Counsel Pat Cipollone attended and was vocally opposed to Clark's scheme. Cipollone later described Clark's proposed letter to January 6 Committee investigators as a "murder-suicide pact."
Donoghue directly told Trump during the meeting that Clark was unqualified to run the DOJ: "He has never tried a criminal case, has never conducted a criminal investigation, and so he's just not the right person for this job." Donoghue also told Trump that if Clark replaced Rosen, Donoghue would resign immediately. Rosen, Donoghue, and Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel had assembled the department's assistant attorneys general on a conference call prior to the meeting. Every assistant attorney general on the call agreed they would resign en masse if Clark replaced Rosen.
Trump ultimately decided not to replace Rosen. The decision followed the threatened mass resignation of DOJ leadership and arguments that the move would produce catastrophic institutional consequences with no legal benefit, since courts had already rejected more than 60 election-related lawsuits.
**Clark's Subsequent Legal Exposure**
Clark was later indicted in Fulton County, Georgia as part of the RICO prosecution documented in CRIM-004, in connection with his role in the effort to pressure Georgia officials regarding the 2020 election results. His disciplinary proceedings before the D.C. Bar remained active as of early 2026.
**Congressional Investigation**
The Senate Judiciary Committee released a report in October 2021 documenting the pressure campaign in detail. The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol held a public hearing on June 23, 2022 dedicated to the DOJ pressure campaign. Rosen, Donoghue, and Engel all testified publicly. Clark invoked his Fifth Amendment right and declined to testify substantively.
Primary Sources
1. House Select Committee on January 6th, Final Report, Chapter 4 (DOJ pressure campaign): https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-REPORT/html-submitted/ch4.html
2. Donoghue handwritten notes, December 27, 2020, released by House Judiciary Committee (via NPR): https://www.npr.org/2021/07/30/1022826068/notes-show-trump-pressed-the-justice-department-to-declare-the-2020-election-cor
3. Senate Judiciary Committee report on DOJ pressure, October 2021 (via CBS News): https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/trump-2020-election-justice-department-senate-judiciary-committee-report/
4. Rosen, Donoghue, and Engel public testimony, January 6 Select Committee, June 23, 2022: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/23/jan-6-hearing-to-spotlight-trumps-pressure-on-doj-and-plan-to-replace-attorney-general-.html
5. Clark indictment, State of Georgia v. Donald J. Trump et al., Fulton County Superior Court (August 2023)
Corroborating Sources
1. NPR: "Former DOJ officials detail threatening to resign en masse in meeting with Trump," June 23, 2022: https://www.npr.org/2022/06/23/1107217243/former-doj-officials-detail-threatening-resign-en-masse-trump-meeting
2. CBS News: "Who is Jeffrey Clark? Ex-DOJ official emerged as central player in Trump's election scheme": https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-clark-justice-department-trump-overturn-2020-election-january-6-select-committee/
3. Washington Post interactive reconstruction of the DOJ pressure campaign: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/trump-justice-department-2020-election/
4. Rolling Stone: "Trump Pressured DOJ to Declare Election Corrupt and 'Leave the Rest to Me'": https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-doj-election-corrupt-notes-1205108/
5. PBS NewsHour: "Who is Jeffrey Rosen and why is he testifying in the Jan. 6 hearings?": https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/who-is-jeffrey-rosen-and-why-is-he-testifying-in-the-jan-6-hearings
Counterarguments and Context
Trump and his allies have advanced several responses to the documented record. They have argued that Trump's requests were legitimate expressions of concern about election integrity and that a president has constitutional authority to direct the executive branch to investigate genuine fraud, making the communications with Rosen and Donoghue an exercise of executive power rather than an abuse of it. They have further argued that the officials who refused Trump's requests were engaged in insubordination. Third, Trump has characterized the January 6 Committee hearings as a partisan proceeding, questioning the credibility of testimony given in that context. Regarding Clark's draft letter, Trump's supporters have argued that a letter raising questions and urging legislative review was within bounds and that the letter was never actually sent.
These arguments face significant evidentiary obstacles. The officials who refused Trump's requests were his own appointees, and their refusals were corroborated by contemporaneous handwritten notes authenticated in congressional proceedings. The draft letter's factual premise was conceded by Clark's own DOJ colleagues to be false at the time of drafting. Courts had rejected more than 60 election-related lawsuits before the January 3 Oval Office meeting. Barr, one of the most loyalist attorneys general of the modern era, had publicly contradicted the fraud narrative before his resignation.
Author's Note
This entry covers the Jeffrey Clark replacement scheme and the January 3, 2021 Oval Office meeting specifically. The broader DOJ pressure campaign, including Trump's pre-election pressure on AG Barr and general demands to investigate Biden, is part of the same documented pattern but involves a wider timeframe and different actors. This entry focuses on the period between Barr's departure and January 6, which represents the most acute phase of the scheme and the point at which the department came closest to issuing false official communications. The entry is classified as Tier 3 because the conduct is documented through extensive primary evidence including congressional testimony, Donoghue's authenticated contemporaneous notes, and committee records, but has not resulted in a criminal conviction specifically for the DOJ pressure scheme itself.