A Democratic Senate investigator revealed on Sunday that former President Donald Trump might not have been the one "pulling the strings" behind attempts to force Justice Department officials to contest the results of the 2020 elections.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a member the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the interim report that his panel released last week on the DOJ pressure campaign.
Chuck Todd was told by the Rhode Island Democrat that they have a complete picture of Trump's involvement in the matter.
Whitehouse stated, "This is a question that you can actually link the president of the United States with the scheme." Trump's attention on election fraud claims in Georgia was also mentioned by Whitehouse, where an additional investigation is being conducted to determine whether or not the ex-president and his associates violated state law.
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Whitehouse stated that it is still unclear who was responsible for the scheme.
He mentioned that Trump would replace Jeffrey Rosen, his acting attorney General, with Jeffrey Clark. Clark is another DOJ official, who proposed to intervene in Georgia's certification process and raised questions about election results in other States. After Trump was informed during a January meeting in Oval Office that Pat Cipollone, a top Justice Department official and White House counsel, would resign if the plan was implemented, the scenario never came to pass.
Whitehouse stated that "what we don't know" is who was behind the whole thing. "The transcript and body English of the witnesses suggest that they had little respect for Jeffrey Clark, the character who was supposed to become the new attorney general. They were skeptical of his qualifications for the role.
He said, "So, it's possible, I suppose that he saw the moment and grabbed it. But it's equally plausible that he was just a cog in larger machinery and we have a lot to do to figure how that machine ran through that period, who was behind, where it came from, what's been happening," he continued.
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Todd raised this question, asking: "And you believe it's Donald Trump?" You know what? When I hear that you are essentially saying that you believe someone else is involved, someone else was pulling the strings. Donald Trump could be the one to blame.
Whitehouse stated that Senate investigators are still working with the House Jan. 6, Select Committee and don't have a clear understanding of this subject.
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We don't know what the future holds, but this guy has jumped to a dark-money enterprise. Jeffrey Clark has taken care of him. This was a busy time for Congress members. He said that there is still much to learn.
Clark was the head for the Justice Department's Civil Division during Trump's administration. He has been appointed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance to be the chief of litigation and director, strategy, of the conservative civil rights group.
According to the Senate Judiciary Committee's report, he has refused to be interviewed. Dick Durbin, the chairman of the panel has requested that the D.C. Bar open an investigation into Clark.
A GOP rebuttal document argued that Trump did not use the Justice Department to reverse President Joe Biden's victory and gave the Senate Judiciary Committee a 394-page report. It was based on testimony from former officials.
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Tags: News, Congress Sheldon Whitehouse Donald Trump Justice Department
Original Author: Daniel Chaitin
Original Location: Whitehouse admits Trump is not the mastermind behind DOJ's scheme to overturn the election
