have to attend a meeting at the White House on on Sunday, January,
3rd.
No. As the acting A G indicated we had a meeting that afternoon that
related to preparations for January six, So I was at the department,
but I had no expectation of leaving the department. It was a Sunday
afternoon.
And I was there in civilian clothes as we both work and expected
to have that meeting do some other work, But I had no expectation
of going to the White House that day. So let's ask him prior to that
Oval Office meeting. Did you set up a conference call was senior
late leadership at the department. And if so, tell us about that
call.
Yes. So obviously there's a bit of a scramble that afternoon to prepare
for the Oval Office meeting We had discussed on several occasions.
The acting attorney general, and I
Whether we should expand the circle of people who knew what was going
on. It was very important that Steve Engel no, and that's why I reached
out to Steve on December 28th because if
Mr Rosen were removed from the sea and the president did not immediately
point someone else's served as attorney general just by function
of the department's chain of succession. Mr Engel would be in the
seat. We want to make sure he knew what was going on. Should that
occur.
Sort of
Three of us knew. We also brought brought over Kimmy and then so
the four of us now
But no one else aside from Jeff Clark, of course, knew what was going
on until late that Sunday afternoon.
We chose to keep it close Hold because we didn't want to create
Concern or panic in the Justice Department leadership.
But at this point
I asked the
Acting a G. What else can I do to help prepare for this meeting in
the Oval Office, and he said
You and Pat should get the eggs on the phone, and it's time to let
them know what's going on. Let's find out what they may do if there's
a change in leadership, because that will help inform the conversation.
At the Oval Office
overcame in subsequent set up that meeting, we got most not all but
most of the ages on the phone.
Very quickly. Explain to them what the situation was. I told them
I don't need an answer from you.
Right now. I don't need an answer on this phone call. But if you
have an answer I needed in the next few minutes. So call me email
me. Text me whatever it is, if you know what you would do.
Jeff Clark is put in charge of the department.
And immediately, Dr Van, who was the age of the Civil Rights Division,
said. I don't need to think about it. There's no way I'm staying.
And then the other ages began to chime in
in turn, and all effects essentially said they would leave they would
resign in mass if the president made that change in the department
leadership.
Incredible. I'd like to look at the assistant Attorney general's
on the screen. If we can pull that up, have their pictures. Did every
assistant attorney general you spoke to, as you said, agreed to resign.
Making our theme was not on the call only because we had some difficulty
reaching him. But, yes, the other people on the screen were on the
call and all without hesitation, said that they were resigned.
So as part of the select committee's investigation. We found that
well, Mr Rosen, Mr Donohue and Mr Engel. We're preparing for the
meeting at the White House. Jeff Clark and the president were in
constant communication.
Beginning at seven AM
White House call logs obtained by the committee show that by 4 19
PM on January 3rd.
The White House had already begun referring to Mr Clark as the acting
attorney general.
As far as the White House was concerned.
Mr Clark was already at the top of the Justice Department.
Two hours later, DOJ leadership arrived at the White House.
The Select Committee interviewed every person who was inside the
room that was inside the room during this Sunday evening Oval Office
meeting.
Mr. Siblani told the committee that he was quote unmistakably angry
during the meeting, and that he, along with Erik Hersman, and Mr
Donohue quote, forcefully challenged Mr Clark to produce evidence
of his election fraud theories.
Mr Rosen, Can you describe how that meeting started? Yes. So, um,
after some preliminaries, so we Mr Meadows had ushered us all in
And then he left.
So Mr Sip. Aloni did some introductions and after some preliminaries
The president turned to me and he said
Well, one thing we know is you, Rosen, You are going to do anything.
You don't even agree with the claims of election fraud.
And this other guy at least, might do something.
And then I said, Well, Mr President, you're right that I'm not going
to allow the Justice Department to do anything to try to overturn
the election. That's true.
But the reason for that is because that's what's consistent with
the facts and the law, and that's what's required under the constitution.
So that's the right answer and a good thing for the country.
And therefore I submit. It's the right thing for you, Mr President.
And that kicked off another two hours of discussion in which everyone
in the room
Was in one way or another, making different points but supportive
of my approach for the Justice Department and critical of Mr Clark.
So at some point, Mr Donohue comes in the room. Can you explain what
led to him coming in the room? Uh, I forgot about that. So initially
In part, I think, because he was underdressed.
We and we had not arranged. We have not yet told the president that
he was going to come in
the White House had had a list of Who would be there That did include
Mr Angle on the White House counsel and the deputy counsel, Mr Hershman.
Um, we went in and then we told the president, maybe 10 minutes into
the meeting or something. I forget how far in Mr Donaghy was outside,
and he said, Well, bring him in.
And then then Mr Donohue came in and joined the meeting.
So, Mr Donahue, you You enter that room. Can you set the scene for
us and described the tone You walked into
Yes, But if I could just back up one moment, Congressman because
she put the pictures up on the screen of the eggs. I just want to
make clear one of the ages who died on the screen with John DEMARs.
John was the national security Division, Aggie.
And John was on the call preference a call by saying John
We need you to stay in place. National security is too important.
We need to minimize the disruption.
Whether you resigned is entirely up to you. Obviously, we respect
your decision either way them asking you please stay in place. And
he did. So I don't want to leave the impression that he was not willing
to resign. Thank you for with regard to entering the Oval Office.
I was sitting in the hallway.
In the ministry of his system passed by, She asked me. Are you supposed
to be in this meeting with the president? I said, no. I'm simply
here in case questions come up that other people don't have the answer
to
And she walked away and then came back. Probably 30. Seconds later.
Instead, the president wants you in the meeting.
Proceed into the Oval Office.
I took probably two or three steps in and I stopped because I was,
as the said, not exactly. Properly attired. I was wearing jeans and
muddy boots and Army T shirt.
And I never would arrive in the Oval Office. This way. I said, Mr
President, I apologize. I'm sorry.
I didn't know he was going to be here and he said no, no, no, Just
come in. Come in. Come in.
And so I went in. I attempted to take a seat on one of the couches
behind the chairs are read in front of the president's desk.
And he said, Oh, no, no, no. You're going to be up here and everyone
kind of left, and they moved the chairs a little bit.
Somewhere from the White House counsel's office, picked up a spare
chair and put it directly in front of the president and I took that
seat.
Was it Was there discussion about Mr Clark, can you can you
Kind of enlightened some of what that discussion was, Yes. So the
conversation at this point had moved beyond the specific allegations
where there is State Farm Arena or Antrim County or Pennsylvania
or whatever we had discussed those repeatedly and
The converse. That was backdrop to the conversation. But the conversation
at this point was really about whether the president should remove
Jeff Rosen and replace him with Jeff Clark and
Everyone in the room, I think understood that that meant that letter
would go out.
Um, So that was the focus was about 2.5 hour meeting after I entered,
And so there were discussions about
The pros and cons of doing that.
Um, early on, the president said.
What do I have to lose?
And
It was actually a good opening because I said, Mr President, you
have a great deal to lose.
And I began to explain to him what he had to lose.
And what the country had to lose and what the department had to lose,
and this was not in anyone's best interest.
That conversation went on for some time.
Everyone essentially chimed in with their own thoughts, all of which
were consistent about how damaging this would be to the country to
the department to the administration to him personally.
Um and
At some point, the conversation turned to
Where the Jeff Clark was even qualified, competent to run the Justice
Department. Which in my mind, he clearly was not.
And it was a heated conversation. I thought it was useful to point
out to the president that Jeff Clark simply didn't have the skills,
the ability and the experience to run the department.
And so I said, Mr President, you're talking about putting a man in
that seat.
Who has never tried a criminal case, who's never conducted a criminal
investigation. He's telling you that he's going to take charge of
the department 115,000 employees, including the entire FBI.
In turn the place on a dime and conduct nationwide criminal investigations
that will produce results in a matter of days. It's impossible. It's
absurd. It's not going to happen, and it's going to fail.
He has never been in front.
Of
A trial jury grand jury. He's never even been to Chris Reyes office.
I said at one point if you walked into Chris Reyes office
One would you know how to get there in too? If you got there, we
even know who you are.
Do you really think that the FBI is going to suddenly start following
your orders? It's not going to happen. He's not competent.
And that's the point at which
Mr Clark tried to defend himself by saying, Well, I've been involved
in very
Significant civil and environmental litigation. I've argued many
appeals and appellate courts and things of that nature, and then
I
And pointed out that yes, he was an environmental lawyer.
I didn't think that was appropriate Background to be ruined in the
United States Justice Department did anybody in their support Mr
Clark? No. One
Mr Rosen. It was you it was going to replace. So what was your view
about the president's plan to appoint Mr Clark?
Well as I alluded to earlier
The issue really wasn't about me. It was
It would have been fine. As I said to have had rich Donaghy replaced
me. I would have said Great. I get 17 days vacation or something.
But the issue was the use of the Justice Department. And it's just
so important that the Justice Department
Ah, and here
To the facts and the law. That's what it's there to do, and that's
what
Our constitutional role was and so if the Justice Department gets
out of the role that it's supposed to play
That's really bad for our country, and I don't know if a simpler
way to say that and when you damage our fundamental institutions,
it's not easy to repair them. So I thought
This was a really important issue to try to make sure that the Justice
Department was able to stay on the right course.
Mr Donnelly did.
Did you eventually tell the president that mass resignations would
occur if he installed Mr Clark and what the consequences would be?
Yes. So this was in line with the president saying, What do I have
to lose?
And
Along those lines, he said. So suppose I do this? Suppose I replace
him.
Jeff Rosen with him, Jeff Clark.
What would you do? And I said, Mr President will resign immediately.
I'm not working one minute for this guy who I just
Declared was completely incompetent. And so the president immediately
turned to Mr Angle and he said, Steve, you wouldn't resign, would
you And he said Absolutely I would. Mr. President, you leave me no
choice.
And now, I said, and we're not the only ones. No one cares if we
resign. If Steve and I go, that's fine. It doesn't matter. But I'm
telling you what's going to happen. You're going to lose your entire
department leadership. Every single age will walk out of here.
Your entire department leadership will walk out within hours.
And I don't know what happens after that. I don't know what the United
States attorneys are going to do.
We have U. S attorneys and districts across the country.
And my guess would be that many of them would have resigned.
And that would then have led to resignations across the department
in Washington.
And I said, Mr President within
24 48 72 hours, You could have hundreds and hundreds of resignations
of the leadership of your entire Justice Department because of your
actions. What's that going to say about you?
Wow. Mr Angle. What was
Can you describe what your reaction was to that?
Yeah, No, I think when the president my recollection is that when
the president turned to me and said, Steve, you wouldn't leave, would
you? I said Mr President, I have been with you through four attorneys
general, including two acting as attorney general.
But I couldn't be part of this. And then the other thing that I said,
was that
You know?
Look, I
All anyone is going to sort of think about when they see this. No
one is going to read this letter.
All anyone is going to think is that you went through two attorneys
general in two weeks until you found the environmental guy to sign
this thing, And so the story is not going to be that the Department
of Justice has found.
Massive corruption that would have changed the results of the election.
It's going to be the disaster of Jeff Clark and I think at that point
has to Bologna said, Yeah, this is a murder suicide pact this letter
And I would I would know to congressman that it was in this part
of the conversation where Steve
Pointed out that Jeff Clark would be left.
Leading a graveyard.
And that
That comment clearly had an impact on the president. The leadership
will be gone. Jeff Clark left leading a graveyard.
Again. The premise that which as Mr Donahue has said that Mr Clark
could come in and take over the Department of Justice and do something
different was just an absurd premise and all he was doing Mr Clark
by putting himself forward was
Blowing himself up and you know the president were to have gone.
That course would have been a grievous error for the president as
well.
Was simple. Only the White House counsel told the committee that
Mr Ingalls response had a noticeable impact on the president that
this was a turning point in the conversation.
Mr Donohue towards the end of this meeting. Did the president ask
you what was going to happen to Mr Clark?
He did when we finally got to the I would say the last 15 minutes
of the meeting, the president's decision was apparent. He announced
that Jeff Clark tried to scrape his way back and asked the president
to reconsider.
Um, President Double Down, said No. I've made my decision. That's
it. We're not going to do it.
And then he turned to me and said, So, what happens to him now?
Meaning, Mr Clark and he understood that Mr Clarke reported to me.
And I didn't initially understand the question. I said Mr President,
and he said, Are you going to fire him?
And I said, I don't have the authority to fire him. He's the Senate
confirmed Assistant Attorney general
And he said, Well, who has the authority to fire him? And I said
only you do, sir. And he said, Well, I'm not going to fire him.
All right. Well, then we should all go back to work.
Did you get a call from the president later that night?
I did
probably 90 minutes later or something like that. What was that about?
The president. This at this point
We left the White House
convenient the department. I left the department. I was back in my
apartment.
My cell phone rang. It was the president and he had information about
a truck.
Supposedly full of shredded ballots in Georgia.
That was in the custody of an ice agent.
Whose name he had.
I told him that I was part of department. Homeland Security. I had
heard about this department. Homeland Security needed our assistance.
We, of course, would provide it.
But it was really up to DHS to make a call if their agent was involved,
and he said fine.
I understand. Can you just make sure that can be in? Ken Cuccinelli
knows about this.
I said Fine. I would pass that, along to him, eventually contacted
Ken Cuccinelli later that evening, and I said This is what the president
told me.
If you guys have anything you think should be brought to our attention.
Let me know. And he said thank you. And that was it.
Mr Siblani left the meeting convinced the president would not appoint
Mr Clark.
But he didn't think the president had actually accepted the truth
about the election.
Sure enough, all the same debunked theories appeared in his speech