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      Jeffrey Clark Was Considered Unassuming. Then He Plotted With Trump.

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJeffrey Clark Was Considered Unassuming. Then He Plotted With Trump.Justice Department colleagues said they were shocked by Mr. Clark’s embrace of the president’s falsehoods and plan to oust the acting attorney general in an effort to overturn Georgia’s election results.Colleagues said they had seen Jeffrey Clark, who was the head of the Justice Department’s civil division, as an establishment lawyer who was not particularly Trumpist.Credit…Pool photo by Yuri GripasKatie Benner and Jan. 24, 2021, 9:58 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — It was New Year’s Eve, but the Justice Department’s top leaders had little to celebrate as they admonished Jeffrey Clark, the acting head of the civil division, for repeatedly pushing them to help President Donald J. Trump undo his electoral loss.Huddled in the department’s headquarters, they rebuked him for secretly meeting with Mr. Trump, even as the department had rebuffed the president’s outlandish requests for court filings and special counsels, according to six people with knowledge of the meeting. No official would host a news conference to say that federal fraud investigations cast the results in doubt, they told him. No one would send a letter making such claims to Georgia lawmakers.When the meeting ended not long before midnight, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen thought the matter had been settled, never suspecting that his subordinate would secretly discuss the plan for the letter with Mr. Trump, and very nearly take Mr. Rosen’s job, as part of a plot with the president to wield the department’s power to try to alter the Georgia election outcome.It was clear that night, though, that Mr. Clark — with his willingness to entertain conspiracy theories about voting booth hacks and election fraud — was not the establishment lawyer they thought him to be. Some senior department leaders had considered him quiet, hard-working and detail-oriented. Others said they knew nothing about him, so low was his profile. He struck neither his fans in the department nor his detractors as being part of the Trumpist faction of the party, according to interviews.The department’s senior leaders were shocked when Mr. Clark’s machinations came to light. They have spent recent weeks debating how he came to betray Mr. Rosen, his biggest champion at the department, and what blend of ambition and conviction led him to reject the results of the election and embrace Mr. Trump’s claims, despite all evidence to the contrary, including inside the department itself.The plot devised by Mr. Clark and Mr. Trump would have ousted Mr. Rosen and used the Justice Department to pressure lawmakers in Georgia to overturn the state’s election results. But Mr. Trump ultimately decided against firing Mr. Rosen after top department leaders pledged to resign en masse.Mr. Clark declined to comment for this report, but he reiterated his assertion that The New York Times’s account of his conversations with Mr. Trump, first reported on Friday, and his colleagues was inaccurate. He said he could not detail those inaccuracies because of legal privilege issues. And he said all of his official communications “were consistent with law.”“The story kind of shocked me because this is not the Jeff that I know,” said Theodore H. Frank, a friend and former colleague. Credit…Justin T. Gellerson for The New York TimesSome of his friends said that those who told the press about his final days at the Justice Department painted a picture of a man they do not recognize. “The story kind of shocked me because this is not the Jeff that I know,” said Theodore H. Frank, a friend and former colleague. “I know Jeff as a guy who really cares about the rule of law and, you know, just a rumpled, thoughtful lawyer who is an intellectual — not a Machiavellian backstabber.”Mr. Clark had spent two years leading the Justice Department’s environmental division, where he was seen as a standard Republican lawyer political appointee — a member of the conservative Federalist Society with a skepticism of rules that cut into corporate profits.But now, Mr. Clark, 53, has become notorious. A person who has worked closely with Kirkland & Ellis, where Mr. Clark spent most of his career outside two stints in the George W. Bush and Trump Justice Departments, said there appeared to be scant chance that the law firm would rehire him.Friends and critics alike reject the notion that Mr. Clark is an operator, describing him as “nerdy” and “thoughtful.”Mr. Frank, who met Mr. Clark when both worked at Kirkland & Ellis in the 1990s and described himself as a Federalist Society member who voted for President Biden, said he was reserving judgment about the incident. Others were more direct.“This is the first wave of character assassination, of people going after the most effective lawyers in the Trump administration,” said Mandy Gunasekara, who worked with Mr. Clark when she worked at the Environmental Protection Agency in the clean air division and as chief of staff to Andrew R. Wheeler when he was the agency’s administrator. She was struck by the fact that Mr. Clark’s colleagues were so upset and fixated on an event that ultimately did not happen. Mr. Trump, after all, did not replace Mr. Rosen with Mr. Clark or have the Justice Department contact Georgia lawmakers.She said Mr. Clark was most likely discussing with his colleagues and the president “a range of options,” just as he was known for doing in his work advising her agency.Some of Mr. Clark’s associates said he could be pedantic. As a manager, he made no effort to hide when he had little respect for his career subordinates’ opinions.He is not known for being understated on the topic of himself. Where the typical biography on the Justice Department website runs a few paragraphs, Mr. Clark’s includes the elementary school he attended in Philadelphia, a topic he debated in college and that he worked for his college newspaper, The Harvard Crimson.After graduating from Harvard in 1989, Mr. Clark earned a master’s degree in urban affairs and public policy from the Biden School of Public Policy at the University of Delaware in 1993 and a law degree from Georgetown University in 1995. He clerked for an appeals court judge, Danny Boggs, who was known for giving prospective clerks quizzes that tested not just their knowledge of the law, but also a range of esoteric trivia.Mr. Clark then worked for Kirkland & Ellis from 1996 to 2001, followed by a stint in the Justice Department’s environmental and natural resources division during the Bush administration, before returning to Kirkland in 2005 as a partner, but not one with an equity stake in the firm, according to a person who worked closely with him at the law firm.He held the title of “non-equity partner,” which meant that he did not share in the firm’s profits or make leadership decisions.When Mr. Clark returned to the Justice Department as the head of the environmental division in 2018, he flew under the radar. Like other Republican officials, he narrowly interpreted the division’s legal authority and had a typically tense relationship with career lawyers when it came to enforcing anti-pollution laws.In one instance, Mr. Clark held up Clean Water Act enforcement cases because of a pending matter before the Supreme Court that career lawyers felt did not directly relate to their work, according to a lawyer with knowledge of those cases. The Supreme Court was hearing a matter that involved discharges that flowed through groundwater before reaching waters regulated by the federal government, and the department was working on a case that involved flows over land.His employees believed that Mr. Clark hoped the court would curtail the law’s reach in a way that would apply to overland spills, too, but by a 6-to-3 ruling, it did not.In a different case, he disagreed with a recommendation that the civil division made to the Office of the Solicitor General, and ultimately got his way after asking the general counsels of other agencies to also push back on the recommendation. Civil division employees said he did not tell them that he would do this, and felt that had circumvented the proper process.Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen had admonished Mr. Clark over his push to help President Donald J. Trump overturn the election.Credit…Ting Shen for The New York TimesWhile Mr. Clark oversaw environmental cases, sometimes working late into the night and personally reviewing briefs, the department’s civil division was in turmoil. Its leader, Jody Hunt, sometimes clashed with the White House Counsel’s Office and, later on, with Attorney General William P. Barr, over how best to defend the administration.Mr. Hunt resigned with no warning in July, leaving his deputy to run the division while Mr. Barr and Mr. Rosen searched for an acting leader among the department’s thinned-out ranks. Mr. Clark wanted the job, which was a considerable step up in stature, and Mr. Rosen supported the idea even though he was already a division head, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.After he took the helm of the civil division in September, colleagues began seeing flashes of unusual behavior. Mr. Clark’s name appeared on eyebrow-raising briefs, including what would turn out to be an unsuccessful effort to inject the government into a defamation lawsuit against Mr. Trump by a woman who has said he raped her more than two decades ago. He also signed onto an attempt to use the Justice Department to sue a former friend of the first lady at the time, Melania Trump, for writing a tell-all memoir.He made clear to lawyers who produced draft briefs that they must spell out his name in full, Jeffrey Bossert Clark, according to a former official.Others said he mounted an idiosyncratic push to remove the word “acting” from his official title — acting assistant attorney general of the civil division — citing an old department legal opinion from the 1980s. Officials denied his request.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Pennsylvania Lawmaker Played Key Role in Trump’s Plot to Oust Acting Attorney General

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPennsylvania Lawmaker Played Key Role in Trump’s Plot to Oust Acting Attorney GeneralThe congressman’s involvement underlined how far the former president was willing to go to overturn the election, and Democratic lawmakers are beginning to call for investigations into those efforts.Representative Scott Perry first made President Donald J. Trump aware that a relatively obscure Justice Department official was sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s view that the election had been stolen.Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesKatie Benner and Jan. 23, 2021Updated 10:15 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — When Representative Scott Perry joined his colleagues in a monthslong campaign to undermine the results of the presidential election, promoting “Stop the Steal” events and supporting an attempt to overturn millions of legally cast votes, he often took a back seat to higher-profile loyalists in President Donald J. Trump’s orbit.But Mr. Perry, an outspoken Pennsylvania Republican, played a significant role in the crisis that played out at the top of the Justice Department this month, when Mr. Trump considered firing the acting attorney general and backed down only after top department officials threatened to resign en masse.It was Mr. Perry, a member of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, who first made Mr. Trump aware that a relatively obscure Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division, was sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s view that the election had been stolen, according to former administration officials who spoke with Mr. Clark and Mr. Trump.Mr. Perry introduced the president to Mr. Clark, whose openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president’s efforts to undo them.Mr. Perry’s previously unreported role, and the quiet discussions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Clark that followed, underlined how much the former president was willing to use the government to subvert the election, turning to more junior and relatively unknown figures for help as ranking Republicans and cabinet members rebuffed him.Mr. Perry’s involvement is also likely to heighten scrutiny of House Republicans who continue to advance Mr. Trump’s false and thoroughly debunked claims of election fraud, even after President Biden’s inauguration this week and as Congress prepares for an impeachment trial that will examine whether such talk incited the Capitol riot.It is unclear when Mr. Perry, who represents the Harrisburg area, met Mr. Clark, a Philadelphia native, or how well they knew each another before the introduction to Mr. Trump. Former Trump administration officials said that it was only in late December that Mr. Clark told Mr. Rosen about the introduction brokered by Mr. Perry, who was among the scores of people feeding Mr. Trump false hope that he had won the election.But it is highly unlikely that Mr. Trump would have known Mr. Clark otherwise. Department officials were startled to learn that the president had called Mr. Clark directly on multiple occasions and that the two had met in person without alerting Mr. Rosen, those officials said. Justice Department policy stipulates that the president initially communicates with the attorney general or the deputy attorney general on all matters, and then a lower-level official if authorized.As the date for Congress to affirm Mr. Biden’s victory neared, Mr. Perry and Mr. Clark discussed a plan to have the Justice Department send a letter to Georgia state lawmakers informing them of an investigation into voter fraud that could invalidate the state’s Electoral College results. Former officials who were briefed on the plan said that the department’s dozens of voter fraud investigations nationwide had not turned up enough instances of fraud to alter the outcome of the election.Mr. Perry and Mr. Clark also discussed the plan with Mr. Trump, setting off a chain of events that nearly led to the ouster of Mr. Rosen, who had refused to send the letter.After The New York Times disclosed the details of the scheme on Friday, the political fallout was swift. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the incoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told the Justice Department in a letter on Saturday that he would investigate efforts by Mr. Trump and Mr. Clark to use the agency “to further Trump’s efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said that it was “unconscionable that a Trump Justice Department leader would conspire to subvert the people’s will.” He called on the department’s inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, to investigate “this attempted sedition.”Mr. Horowitz has already opened an investigation into whether Trump administration officials improperly pressured Byung J. Pak, who abruptly resigned this month as the U.S. attorney in Atlanta after being pressed to take actions related to the election, according to a person briefed on the inquiry. Mr. Durbin is investigating that matter as well.Mr. Trump also tried to force Justice Department officials, including Mr. Rosen and the acting solicitor general, Jeffrey Wall, to file a lawsuit before the Supreme Court that would challenge Mr. Biden’s victory, according to a person briefed on the request.One of Mr. Trump’s outside lawyers even drafted a brief for the department to file to the court. Department officials and the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, told Mr. Trump that the plan would fail for several reasons, including the fact that the department did not have the grounds to challenge the outcome, the person said.The fight between Mr. Trump and Justice Department officials over the Supreme Court filing was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.The episode with Mr. Clark and Mr. Perry is yet another example at impeachment managers’ disposal as they put together their case that Mr. Trump should be disqualified from holding office again.Mr. Clark declined to comment on his relationship with Mr. Perry, and he categorically denied devising any plan to oust Mr. Rosen. He said that there had been “a candid discussion of options and pros and cons with the president” that had been inaccurately described by The Times, but he declined to provide details. He declined to say anything more about his conversations with Mr. Trump or Justice Department lawyers because of “the strictures of legal privilege.”Asked whether his conversations with the president had violated the department policy governing contact with the president, he said that senior lawyers at the agency provided legal advice to the White House as part of their duties. “All my official communications were consistent with law,” he said.Mr. Clark, a member of the conservative Federalist Society, had been appointed the acting head of the civil division in September. He also oversaw the department’s environmental and natural resources division, where he had worked under President George W. Bush.Neither Mr. Perry nor his top aides responded to repeated requests for comment.Some Senate Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, have grown increasingly worried that if they do not intervene and distance themselves from Mr. Trump, the havoc wreaked by the former president could hurt Republicans’ political fortunes for years to come. The episode amounts to an unwelcome reminder that damaging information around his presidency could continue to emerge even though Mr. Trump is no longer in office.And Mr. Perry’s role in the discussions could further escalate tensions in the House, where Democratic lawmakers were already livid at Republicans for fanning the flames before the Capitol riot, with some rank-and-file members calling for the expulsion of lawmakers who led efforts to overturn the election.The pressure that Mr. Trump placed on the Justice Department, including any plan that he may have considered to remove Mr. Rosen, also raises legal questions for him.The acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, in October. Mr. Perry worked with Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the Justice Department’s civil division, to try to remove Mr. Rosen from his post.Credit…Ting Shen for The New York TimesMr. Trump’s duty as president was to ensure that “laws be faithfully executed for the benefit of the country,” and efforts to interfere in the election could be considered a violation of his constitutional duty, said Neil Eggleston, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis and a White House counsel under President Barack Obama.There is little chance that a Justice Department letter sent to Georgia lawmakers would have prompted the state to invalidate its Electoral College votes.But the plan was consistent with the posture Mr. Perry had taken since November, when he began to falsely claim that there had been rampant fraud in the election, and throughout it all, Mr. Perry has remained defiant. Facing calls to resign over his role in the efforts to overturn the election, Mr. Perry issued a one-word response: “No.”Mr. Perry, a retired brigadier general in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and an Iraq War veteran, has been scrutinized for his openness to the conspiratorial. He baselessly suggested that the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas by a lone gunman could have been influenced by “terrorist infiltration through the southern border” and refused to support a resolution that condemned QAnon, a pro-Trump conspiracy movement. (Mr. Perry said he believed that the resolution infringed on individuals’ right to free speech and that he did not personally subscribe to the movement.)An early supporter of the “Stop the Steal” campaign, Mr. Perry was one of 126 House Republicans who joined a legal brief in December supporting an extraordinary lawsuit seeking to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory. And he joined over two dozen of his colleagues who urged Mr. Trump to direct William P. Barr, the attorney general, to “investigate irregularities in the 2020 election.”He objected on behalf of 79 other House Republicans to certifying Pennsylvania’s electoral results and was among 139 House Republicans who voted to reject Mr. Biden’s electoral victory, even though he later acknowledged Mr. Biden as the president-elect.The plan that Mr. Perry devised with Mr. Clark set off a crisis at the Justice Department. When Mr. Clark approached Mr. Rosen with the Georgia letter at the end of December, Mr. Rosen refused to send it, according to four former administration officials. On Jan. 3, Mr. Clark notified Mr. Rosen that he would be taking his job at Mr. Trump’s behest.As Mr. Rosen prepared to meet Mr. Trump later that day and fight for his job, his top deputies, including the acting deputy attorney general, Richard P. Donoghue, and his outgoing chief of staff, Patrick Hovakimian, convened the department’s senior leaders on a conference call, according to five former officials with knowledge of the call.They told the department leaders that Mr. Rosen’s job was in jeopardy because of Mr. Clark’s machinations and said they would resign if Mr. Rosen was removed. They ended the call by asking their colleagues to privately consider what they would do if that happened. Over the next 15 minutes, all of them emailed or texted Mr. Hovakimian, saying that they would quit.While Mr. Rosen, Mr. Donoghue and other top department and White House lawyers spent nearly three hours with Mr. Trump and Mr. Clark, debating the merits of sending the letter to Georgia lawmakers, Mr. Hovakimian — in anticipation of Mr. Rosen’s removal — drafted an email to the department’s senior leaders, including those who were not aware of what was transpiring at the White House, according to two people briefed on the letter.In it, he explained that Mr. Rosen had resisted Mr. Trump’s repeated calls to use the department’s law enforcement powers for improper ends and that the president had removed him, according to a person who reviewed the email. He wrote that he and Mr. Donoghue were resigning immediately and encouraged his colleagues to think hard about what they would do and to always act in the interests of the United States.When Mr. Hovakimian received word that Mr. Rosen had been allowed to stay, he drafted a new email that he sent to the anxiously awaiting officials: Mr. Rosen and the cause of justice had won.Maggie Haberman More

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      Whither the Republican Party After Trump?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storylettersWhither the Republican Party After Trump?Readers discuss the split in the party between those who continue to support Donald Trump and those who have regrets.Jan. 23, 2021, 12:00 p.m. ET Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “As Trump Falls, a Party Braces for Pitchforks” (front page, Jan. 17):The G.O.P. owes the country a big mea culpa for the lies told in the party’s name, especially the claim of a massive voter fraud that stole the election from Donald Trump.If the large majority of Republicans continue to believe, as recent polls show, that the election was rigged, the country’s bitter divide cannot be healed, nor can the party itself recover unity. The “big lie” will continue to fuel the beliefs and violence of the far-right mob responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.All responsible Republican leaders need to grab megaphones and declare that Donald Trump and his enablers lied, and that Joe Biden won fair and square. They should correct other big lies, too, including antifa orchestration of the Capitol attack.Sure, it would further embarrass the party, but that is probably preferable to ending up a laughingstock in the political graveyard — in the family plot of the Know Nothings and other parties that descended into deception and racism.Charles BurressEl Cerrito, Calif.To the Editor:In 1952 I joined the Republican Party and joyfully voted for Dwight D. Eisenhower for president. I lived in Texas, where the Democrats then embraced the cruel tradition of Jim Crow. Republicans offered a hope for a gentler integration of our Black neighbors.I remained a loyal Republican during the awkward days of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s attacks, but became tested when Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush reduced taxes on the rich. Then along came Donald Trump with his self-serving lies, which encouraged the horrendous assaults on our Capitol on Jan. 6.Whether or not he realizes it, Mr. Trump has dealt the Republican Party a near terminal blow. Who knows how many years will pass before the Grand Old Party will recover? I firmly believe that our nation has thrived while governed by a two-party political system. But until the Republican Party rejects Mr. Trump’s repugnant policies, don’t look to me for support.Conrad Gordon DeatsTampa, Fla.To the Editor:I voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. Seeing the recent chaos, should I regret that? What other options exist?Democrats claim to be the party of tolerance and unity. But they won’t tolerate my beliefs. They undermine family values and demand universal access to the murder of unborn babies. I can’t vote for them anymore.Republicans, on the other hand, do little more than talk the talk while failing to walk forward. In fact, with both the legislative and executive branches secured by Republicans for the first two years of Mr. Trump’s term, what good did they do?Sure, I’m disappointed by Mr. Trump’s words, but I’m far more disappointed in the rest of our government. I don’t regret my votes.Kevin CustosBrookfield, Ill.To the Editor:Re “Trump Lost Arizona, but Not His Firm Grip on the State’s G.O.P.” (front page, Jan. 20):As a former resident of Arizona, I am appalled that the leadership of that state’s Republican Party is planning to censure Cindy McCain and Jeff Flake for not supporting Donald Trump in the 2020 election. I am not surprised that thousands of Arizona Republicans have changed their voting registration to independent.Kelli Ward, state party chair, ought to be replaced by someone who believes in healing a fractured party. The Arizona Republican “family” is not just fractured; rather, it is dysfunctional and delusional as long as it continues to spew mythical conspiracy theories of fraud and a stolen election. God help Arizona!Reuven TaffSacramentoTo the Editor:Re “Senate Leader Says President ‘Provoked’ Mob” (front page, Jan. 20):This moment presents an opportunity for Republican leadership to redefine the party as one of integrity, decency and lawfulness. The alternative, a party that resembles organized crime, will destroy our democracy and lead to more chaos, fear and bloodshed.A Senate conviction of Donald Trump is in the best interest of the Republican Party, the United States and the world. I am grateful to the 10 Republican members of Congress who bravely voted for truth against threats of retaliation and death, not only against themselves but their families as well.There is potentially much for individual senators to lose by voting to convict the president of “inciting violence against the government of the United States.” There is much more for them, their families, our country and the world to lose if they vote to uphold Mr. Trump’s unconstitutional actions. I urge all senators, all of whose lives were threatened because of the president’s actions on Jan. 6, to be brave and uphold their commitment to protect, defend and serve.Nancy BermonNyack, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “The Few Courageous Senators,” by Peter Beinart (Op-Ed, Jan. 16):I got a real kick out of this piece on courageous senators. My feeling is that Mr. Beinart defines “courageous” as agreeing to the liberal narrative as opposed to defying one’s party. Let’s see how courageous he thinks Joe Manchin is in a couple of months when he votes to keep the filibuster.Paul MoraisSioux Falls, S.D.To the Editor:Dear Trump voters:OK, you got to pay lower taxes, you got a conservative Supreme Court, you got rid of many regulations, you got the U.S. Embassy moved to Jerusalem and you could probably list many other “gots.” But just stop for one minute and think about what happened in our sacred Capitol because of one man refusing to gracefully accept defeat.Are you still proud of your vote, and are you still a “Trumpster”? Or have you had a change of heart? For the sake of our country and democracy and the lives of those in power, I sincerely hope the answer to the last question is “yes!”Barry MarkowitzWest Stockbridge, Mass.To the Editor:I am now a “repentant Republican,” meaning that I’m disappointed in Donald Trump’s false promises and false “facts” that have taken advantage of a lot of hard-working Americans, including my family, many of whom still believe his conspiracy theories. I’m also disillusioned by the many Republican officeholders who declined to stand up to him when they knew he was wrong.But it’s probably time that we all acknowledge that we elected a narcissistic con man, and that we count our losses and look forward to a time of sanity and healing. After all, as the proverb goes, “The bitter heart eats its owner.”Michael BarrettAshburn, Va.To the Editor:Re “The Donor Class Pressures Republicans Still Backing Trump” (news article, Jan. 14):I’m heartened that the congressional Republicans who voted to overturn the election — a.k.a. the Sedition Caucus — are losing major corporate donors to their political campaigns. I hope those same donors and all others will stop buying advertising time on Fox News and other right-wing and extremist media.These media companies continue to spread lies about our election, democracy and country. By their actions, they implicitly encourage the insurrectionists to try again, and again and again. These complicit media companies need to be starved of the profits they depend on.Laurie CaplanAstoria, Ore.To the Editor:Dear Senator Rand Paul:So you think the Republican Party will lose one-third of its members if they separate from Donald Trump. Well, Mr. Rand, it’s sort of like a gangrenous leg. No one likes the thought of losing a limb, but when it’s poisoning the rest of the body, it has to go.Your Fellow American,C.A. PapapietroPort Jefferson, N.Y.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Trump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting AG

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump and Justice Dept. Lawyer Said to Have Plotted to Oust Acting Attorney GeneralTrying to find another avenue to push his baseless election claims, Donald Trump considered installing a loyalist, and had the men make their cases to him.Jeffrey Clark, who led the Justice Department’s civil division, had been working with President Donald J. Trump to devise ways to cast doubt on the election results.Credit…Susan Walsh/Associated PressJan. 22, 2021Updated 8:50 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s top leaders listened in stunned silence this month: One of their peers, they were told, had devised a plan with President Donald J. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen as acting attorney general and wield the department’s power to force Georgia state lawmakers to overturn its presidential election results.The unassuming lawyer who worked on the plan, Jeffrey Clark, had been devising ways to cast doubt on the election results and to bolster Mr. Trump’s continuing legal battles and the pressure on Georgia politicians. Because Mr. Rosen had refused the president’s entreaties to carry out those plans, Mr. Trump was about to decide whether to fire Mr. Rosen and replace him with Mr. Clark.The department officials, convened on a conference call, then asked each other: What will you do if Mr. Rosen is dismissed?The answer was unanimous. They would resign.Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud. Mr. Trump’s decision came only after Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark made their competing cases to him in a bizarre White House meeting that two officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis.The previously unknown chapter was the culmination of the president’s long-running effort to batter the Justice Department into advancing his personal agenda. He also pressed Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels, including one who would look into Dominion Voting Systems, a maker of election equipment that Mr. Trump’s allies had falsely said was working with Venezuela to flip votes from Mr. Trump to Joseph R. Biden Jr.This account of the department’s final days under Mr. Trump’s leadership is based on interviews with four former Trump administration officials who asked not to be named because of fear of retaliation.Mr. Clark said that this account contained inaccuracies but did not specify, adding that he could not discuss any conversations with Mr. Trump or Justice Department lawyers. “Senior Justice Department lawyers, not uncommonly, provide legal advice to the White House as part of our duties,” he said. “All my official communications were consistent with law.”Mr. Clark also noted that he was the lead signatory on a Justice Department request last month asking a federal judge to reject a lawsuit that sought to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the results of the election.Mr. Trump declined to comment. An adviser said that Mr. Trump has consistently argued that the justice system should investigate “rampant election fraud that has plagued our system for years.”The adviser added that “any assertion to the contrary is false and being driven by those who wish to keep the system broken.”A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, as did Mr. Rosen. When Mr. Trump said on Dec. 14 that Attorney General William P. Barr was leaving the department, some officials thought that he might allow Mr. Rosen a short reprieve before pressing him about voter fraud. After all, Mr. Barr would be around for another week.Instead, Mr. Trump summoned Mr. Rosen to the Oval Office the next day. He wanted the Justice Department to file legal briefs supporting his allies’ lawsuits seeking to overturn his election loss. And he urged Mr. Rosen to appoint special counsels to investigate not only unfounded accusations of widespread voter fraud, but also Dominion, the voting machines firm.(Dominion has sued the pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who inserted those accusations into four federal lawsuits about voter irregularities that were all dismissed.)Mr. Rosen refused. He maintained that he would make decisions based on the facts and the law, and he reiterated what Mr. Barr had privately told Mr. Trump: The department had investigated voting irregularities and found no evidence of widespread fraud.But Mr. Trump continued to press Mr. Rosen after the meeting — in phone calls and in person. He repeatedly said that he did not understand why the Justice Department had not found evidence that supported conspiracy theories about the election that some of his personal lawyers had espoused. He declared that the department was not fighting hard enough for him.As Mr. Rosen and the deputy attorney general, Richard P. Donoghue, pushed back, they were unaware that Mr. Clark had been introduced to Mr. Trump by a Pennsylvania politician and had told the president that he agreed that fraud had affected the election results.Election workers performing a recount in Atlanta in November. Mr. Trump focused on Georgia’s election outcome after he lost the state.Credit…Nicole Craine for The New York TimesMr. Trump quickly embraced Mr. Clark, who had been appointed the acting head of the civil division in September and was also the head of the department’s environmental and natural resources division.As December wore on, Mr. Clark mentioned to Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue that he spent a lot of time reading on the internet — a comment that alarmed them because they inferred that he believed the unfounded conspiracy theory that Mr. Trump had won the election. Mr. Clark also told them that he wanted the department to hold a news conference announcing that it was investigating serious accusations of election fraud. Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue rejected the proposal.As Mr. Trump focused increasingly on Georgia, a state he lost narrowly to Mr. Biden, he complained to Justice Department leaders that the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Byung J. Pak, was not trying to find evidence for false election claims pushed by Mr. Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and others. Mr. Donoghue warned Mr. Pak that the president was now fixated on his office, and that it might not be tenable for him to continue to lead it, according to two people familiar with the conversation.That conversation and Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him votes compelled Mr. Pak to abruptly resign this month.Mr. Clark was also focused on Georgia. He drafted a letter that he wanted Mr. Rosen to send to Georgia state legislators that wrongly said that the Justice Department was investigating accusations of voter fraud in their state, and that they should move to void Mr. Biden’s win there.Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue again rejected Mr. Clark’s proposal.On New Year’s Eve, the trio met to discuss Mr. Clark’s refusal to hew to the department’s conclusion that the election results were valid. Mr. Donoghue flatly told Mr. Clark that what he was doing was wrong. The next day, Mr. Clark told Mr. Rosen — who had mentored him while they worked together at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis — that he was going to discuss his strategy with the president early the next week, just before Congress was set to certify Mr. Biden’s electoral victory.Unbeknown to the acting attorney general, Mr. Clark’s timeline moved up. He met with Mr. Trump over the weekend, then informed Mr. Rosen midday on Sunday that the president intended to replace him with Mr. Clark, who could then try to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. He said that Mr. Rosen could stay on as his deputy attorney general, leaving Mr. Rosen speechless.Unwilling to step down without a fight, Mr. Rosen said that he needed to hear straight from Mr. Trump and worked with the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, to convene a meeting for early that evening.Mr. Clark asked Mr. Trump to oust Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting attorney general.Credit…Ting Shen for The New York TimesEven as Mr. Clark’s pronouncement was sinking in, stunning news broke out of Georgia: State officials had recorded an hourlong call, published by The Washington Post, during which Mr. Trump pressured them to manufacture enough votes to declare him the victor. As the fallout from the recording ricocheted through Washington, the president’s desperate bid to change the outcome in Georgia came into sharp focus.Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue pressed ahead, informing Steven Engel, the head of the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel, about Mr. Clark’s latest maneuver. Mr. Donoghue convened a late-afternoon call with the department’s remaining senior leaders, laying out Mr. Clark’s efforts to replace Mr. Rosen.Mr. Rosen planned to soon head to the White House to discuss his fate, Mr. Donoghue told the group. Should Mr. Rosen be fired, they all agreed to resign en masse. For some, the plan brought to mind the so-called Saturday Night Massacre of the Nixon era, where Attorney General Elliot L. Richardson and his deputy resigned rather than carry out the president’s order to fire the special prosecutor investigating him.The Clark plan, the officials concluded, would seriously harm the department, the government and the rule of law. For hours, they anxiously messaged and called one another as they awaited Mr. Rosen’s fate.Around 6 p.m., Mr. Rosen, Mr. Donoghue and Mr. Clark met at the White House with Mr. Trump, Mr. Cipollone, his deputy Patrick Philbin and other lawyers. Mr. Trump had Mr. Rosen and Mr. Clark present their arguments to him.Mr. Cipollone advised the president not to fire Mr. Rosen and he reiterated, as he had for days, that he did not recommend sending the letter to Georgia lawmakers. Mr. Engel advised Mr. Trump that he and the department’s remaining top officials would resign if he fired Mr. Rosen, leaving Mr. Clark alone at the department.Mr. Trump seemed somewhat swayed by the idea that firing Mr. Rosen would trigger not only chaos at the Justice Department, but also congressional investigations and possibly recriminations from other Republicans and distract attention from his efforts to overturn the election results.After nearly three hours, Mr. Trump ultimately decided that Mr. Clark’s plan would fail, and he allowed Mr. Rosen to stay.Mr. Rosen and his deputies concluded they had weathered the turmoil. Once Congress certified Mr. Biden’s victory, there would be little for them to do until they left along with Mr. Trump in two weeks.They began to exhale days later as the Electoral College certification at the Capitol got underway. And then they received word: The building had been breached.Maggie Haberman More

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      Does a Red Tie Immediately Scream ‘Donald Trump’ Now?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyask vanessaDoes a Red Tie Immediately Scream ‘Donald Trump’ Now?Vanessa Friedman, fashion director of The New York Times, takes reader questions.Jan. 22, 2021, 5:00 p.m. ETWhen it’s time to head back to the office, and on the few days when I wear a suit and tie, I should retire my red ties, right, unless I want everyone to assume I am a Trump supporter? Is it possible for any man to wear a red tie now and not immediately call to mind the former president? — Ken, Newton, Mass.Though the death of the tie is declared regularly — especially given the pressures of both the long-term office-casual movement and our current working-from-home reality — Guy Trebay, our men’s wear critic, maintains that you should not count the accessory out quite yet. As he said, “even if we’re not wearing them much during lockdown, you don’t want to give up on an element of the wardrobe that’s been around for 400 years.”Ties can, after all, be used to signal “your club, your interests, whether you are a jokester, a brainiac or even a clown.” Not to mention, as you say, “political affiliation.”The question is whether the party dividing line between red and blue that has swept even the necktie into its maw will remain uppermost in everyone’s minds now that unity is the word of the moment (and purple the color). Given how central red ties were to President Trump’s uniform, it is natural to think that we may now have a Pavlovian response to the color. But the fact is, red ties were a wardrobe staple long before Mr. Trump got hold of them.Indeed, from the time presidential debates began being regularly televised in color in 1976 until 1988, both candidates wore red ties 14 out of 18 times; they were, essentially, considered less partisan than eye-catching and powerful. George W. Bush loved a red tie, but so, too, did Barack Obama. Though President Biden seems partial to blue, he wore red ties during the primary debates, and I am sure he will again. Unless, of course, he hews to the Mark Zuckerberg-Steve Jobs theory of dressing and settles on a specific uniform to wear every day.According to Richard Ford, a professor at Stanford Law School and the author of “Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History” (out in February), the real signature of Mr. Trump’s ties is not the color, which is too generic for any single person to truly monopolize. “A red necktie paired with a white shirt and blue suit has always had an overly literal symbolism,” Mr. Ford said. “Red, white and blue, see? I’m patriotic!” Rather, the Trump ties are generally “tied to be way too long,” so they dangle a few inches below his belt.It’s the combination of shade and style that makes the statement of allegiance, not simply one or the other. That’s what you should keep in mind when getting dressed. Then go ahead: Tie one on.Your Style Questions, AnsweredEvery week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More