Former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark meets with Jan. 6 panel

Jeffrey Clark, a central figure in former President Trump’s pressure campaign at the Justice Department, sat Wednesday with investigators from the House panel probing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The deposition finally came to fruition when the committee formally voted to censure Clark in December, after he and his attorney walked out of a November meeting with the panel. A vote before the full House has been hanging in the balance as Clark has since agreed to plead the Fifth before the committee, but has since twice rescheduled his appearance due to medical issues. 

Committee Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said he expects the deposition will last into the afternoon, at which point the panel will weigh whether to move forward with its rebuke.

“We’ve operated in good faith in scheduling him and trying to accommodate him, and we’ll just see what develops,” Thompson told reporters Wednesday afternoon.

Clark, a midlevel attorney at the Justice Department who primarily worked on environmental issues, used his perch to suggest the department forward a letter to several states encouraging them to delay the certification of their 2020 presidential election results.

Trump even mulled installing Clark as acting attorney general as other department officials refused to act on his claims of election fraud — a move that left the department’s top officials threatening to resign.

The committee subpoenaed Clark in October of last year.

But Clark initially sought to rebuff the committee, arguing his conversations with Trump should be covered by attorney client privilege and executive privilege.

However a letter from Trump seeking to restrict access to various former aides on executive privilege grounds did not include Clark, while a July letter from DOJ also gave him the green light to engage with the committee. 

The committee’s move to censure Clark – which could result in prosecution by his former employer – pushed him to plead the Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination, a plea that can have serious professional ramifications for attorneys.

Updated at 3:27 p.m.