A House of Representatives commission investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol is holding its fifth public hearing on Thursday, this time focusing on former President Donald Trump’s efforts to put pressure on the Justice Department.
Witnesses will be former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen; former Deputy Attorney General Richard Donohue; and former Assistant Attorney General Stephen Engel. Donohue testified before the commission that Trump had proposed replacing Rosen with former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark.
CBS News has learned that Clark’s home was searched on Wednesday morning.
CBS News has previously confirmed that federal investigators are serving summonses and appearing in places involving people who may have been involved in efforts to use “invalid voters.”
Spokesman Elaine Luria told CBS News on her way to the hearing room that Clark would be “central to today’s hearing.” She said she did not know in advance about the search of his home.
Representative Adam Kinsinger, one of only two Republicans on the committee who took the lead in Thursday’s hearing, said in his opening statement that Trump wanted the Justice Department to say the election was “corrupt” and leave the rest to the Republicans. members of Congress. So, Kinzinger said, the president is looking for a new chief prosecutor, which will be his third in two weeks. He needed someone who could ignore the facts, Kinzinger said.
Stephen Engel, a former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, on the left, Jeffrey Rosen, a former acting attorney general, and Richard Donohue, a former deputy attorney general, are sworn in to testify. Jacqueline Martin / AP
Clark, an environmental lawyer, has no real qualifications to make him attorney general, Kinsinger said.
“What was his only qualification? That he would do what the president wanted to do,” Kinzinger said.
Commissioner Benny Thompson said in his opening statement that “today we will tell the story of how the pressure campaign was also directed at the federal agency in charge of enforcing our laws, the Department of Justice.”
Commission aides said the commission would claim that Trump failed only because the Justice Department’s leadership team threatened to resign. There could potentially be a video of Clark’s meeting with the committee, during which he pleaded for the Fifth Amendment.
Earlier Thursday, documentary filmmaker Alex Holder met with the committee behind closed doors. After the meeting, Holder told reporters that he had provided all the materials the commission had requested and would continue to cooperate. He tweeted that he had an interview with Trump before January 6 and two after, but declined to say what the former president’s video showed.
According to the New York Times, Ivanka Trump told the film crew in mid-December 2020 that the former president must “continue to fight until all legal remedies are exhausted,” which differs from her testimony before the elected committee. . CBS News confirmed the Times account.
In an interview with House of Representatives investigators, which was shown at earlier public hearings, Ivanka Trump said she “accepts” the conclusion of then-prosecutor Bill Bar that there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Asked about the discrepancies between Ivanka Trump’s comments to the film crew and her testimony before the selected committee, Holder said that “there are certainly differences in the things she says.”
Russell Smith, Holder’s lawyer, said there were “inconsistencies” in Ivanka Trump’s statements.
“That’s why we’re working with the commission, and they can determine if there’s been perjury or less,” Smith told reporters.
Thursday’s hearing is the fifth public hearing so far by the House of Representatives’ election commission, which has been investigating the attack for 11 months. Earlier public hearings focused on other campaigns to pressure Trump, including state lawmakers and election officials and Vice President Mike Pence.
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