Jan. 6 panel OKs Clark contempt case

Decision heads to the House as ex-Trump official set for second deposition

WASHINGTON — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol voted Wednesday to pursue contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who refused to answer the committee’s questions, even as the committee has agreed to let him come back for another try.

The committee voted 9-0 to pursue criminal charges against Clark, who aligned with Donald Trump as the then-president tried to overturn his election defeat.

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said it had received a last-minute notification from Clark’s lawyer that he wants to instead invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Thompson said the lawyer had offered “no specific basis for that assertion” and “no facts that would allow the committee to consider it,” but the committee will give him a second chance at a deposition scheduled for Saturday.

“This is, in my view, a last-ditch attempt to delay the Select Committee’s proceedings,” Thompson said. “However, a Fifth Amendment privilege assertion is a weighty one. Even though Mr. Clark previously had the opportunity to make these claims on the record, the Select Committee will provide him another chance to do so.”

Clark appeared for a deposition last month but refused to answer any questions based on Trump’s legal efforts to block the committee’s investigation.

The recommendation of criminal contempt charges against Clark will now go to the full House for a vote, though it is unclear if that will be delayed. If the House votes to hold Clark in contempt, the Justice Department would then decide whether or not to prosecute.

Lawmakers on the Jan. 6 panel have vowed to hold any witness who doesn’t comply in contempt as they investigate the worst attack on the Capitol in two centuries. The Justice Department has signaled it is willing to pursue those charges, indicting longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon in November on two counts of criminal contempt.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said then that Bannon’s indictment reflects the department’s “steadfast commitment” to the rule of law after Bannon outright defied a subpoena from the committee and refused to cooperate.

Clark’s case could be more complicated since he did appear for his deposition and, unlike Bannon, was a Trump administration official on Jan. 6. But members of the committee argued that Clark had no basis to refuse questioning, especially since they intended to ask about some matters that didn’t involve direct interactions with Trump and wouldn’t fall under the former president’s claims of executive privilege.

In a transcript of Clark’s aborted Nov. 5 interview released Tuesday by the panel, staff and members of the committee attempted to persuade Clark to answer questions about his role as Trump pushed the Justice Department to investigate his false allegations of widespread fraud in the election.

Clark had become an ally of the former president as other Justice officials pushed back on the baseless claims. But Clark’s attorney, Harry MacDougald, said during the interview that Clark was protected not only by Trump’s assertions of executive privilege but also several other privileges MacDougald claimed Clark should be afforded.

The committee rejected those arguments, and MacDougald and Clark walked out of the interview after around 90 minutes.

According to a report earlier this year by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which interviewed several of Clark’s colleagues, Trump’s pressure culminated in a dramatic White House meeting at which the president ruminated about elevating Clark to attorney general. He did not do so after several aides threatened to resign.

Despite Trump’s false claims about a stolen election — the primary motivation for the violent mob that broke into the Capitol and interrupted the certification of Biden’s victory — the results were confirmed by state officials and upheld by the courts. Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, said in December 2020 that the Justice Department found no evidence of widespread fraud that could have changed the results.

Thompson wrote in Clark’s subpoena that the committee’s probe “has revealed credible evidence that you attempted to involve the Department of Justice in efforts to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power” and his efforts “risked involving the Department of Justice in actions that lacked evidentiary foundation and threatened to subvert the rule of law.”

After Clark refused to answer questions, Thompson said it was “astounding that someone who so recently held a position of public trust to uphold the Constitution would now hide behind vague claims of privilege by a former President, refuse to answer questions about an attack on our democracy, and continue an assault on the rule of law.”

Wednesday’s committee vote came as Trump’s top White House aide at the time, chief of staff Mark Meadows, has agreed to cooperate with the panel on a limited basis after more than two months of negotiations. Meadows has provided some documents and is expected to sit for a deposition as soon as next week, though his lawyer has indicated he will decline to answer specific questions about his conversations with the president.