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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">brooks bros, ICCC promote 2nd (furies pending)</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><div style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">philly inq</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-republicans-jan-6-help-trump-20221222-ccq7ly5w2rfergjbcnwdatya3a-story.html">https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-republicans-jan-6-help-trump-20221222-ccq7ly5w2rfergjbcnwdatya3a-story.html</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">h</font><span style="color: rgb(25, 25, 25); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px;">undreds of pages of deposition transcripts released Wednesday by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack offered new insights into the roles Pennsylvania Republicans played in aiding President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">The committee is expected to issue the full report on its investigation on Thursday. But the newly released transcripts were filled with new details including that Mike Roman, a Philadelphia native and one of Trump’s top election advisers, helped spearhead the effort to send pro-Trump electors to Washington as Congress met to certify the election results that day.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They also revealed a previously undisclosed attempt by state Sen. Doug Mastriano to access certain voting machines days before Jan. 6 as well as references to a plan floated by the White House to sue Pennsylvania directly in the U.S. Supreme Court over its administration of the 2020 vote. The documents also shed new light on the role a congressional staffer for U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly played behind the scenes.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Here are some of the highlights from the committee’s interviews:</p><div id="nativo_903627" class="trb_ar_nt" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(25, 25, 25); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; z-index: 6; position: relative;" /><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mike Roman:</span>&nbsp;A key Trump campaign operative’s role in the false electors scheme</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Roman, a longtime Philadelphia Republican political operative, appeared to play a key role in organizing false electors in swing states such as Pennsylvania as part of a plot to overturn the election.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A former Philadelphia ward leader and senior adviser to the Trump campaign,</span>&nbsp;Roman was designated by Trump lawyer<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;Rudy Giuliani&nbsp;</span>as “the lead for executing the voting” by the fake electors Dec. 14, 2020</b>, according to an email the committee cited in an interview transcript released Wednesday.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>The interview transcript suggests the pro-Trump electors in Pennsylvania were concerned about possible legal exposure if they signed official certificates purporting to be the legitimate electors.</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In the interview, investigators referenced a Dec. 12, 2020, email sent to Roman from Trump campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Mike, here is my suggested language for dealing with the concern raised in the PA conference call about electors possibly facing legal exposure, parenthesis, at the hands of a partisan AG, close parenthesis, if they seem to certify that they are currently the valid electors,” the transcript says</span>.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Investigators also asked Roman whether he knew if&nbsp;<b>Mastriano, the state senator who ran as the GOP’s candidate for Pennsylvania governor this year, had expressed concerns about the elector plan. Roman pleaded the Fifth.</b></span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">The transcript suggests Roman also played a role in organizing the delivery of&nbsp;<b>Wisconsin Republicans’ fake elector certificate to Congress on Jan. 6</b>. A person investigators identified as&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Michael Brown texted associates that he “should probably buy Roman a tie for sending me on this one. Hasn’t been done since 1876</span>&nbsp;... ”</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">That’s an apparent reference to the disputed presidential election that year.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roman refused to say whether he’d instructed Brown to deliver the document, the transcript says.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The interview transcript also references a briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers in November 2020 about purported election fraud. On Nov. 8, 2020, Roman shared with an associate a screenshot of a message he’d obtained that said: “Maybe the Trump campaign should get some actual evidence of fraud and file in court. They’ve been horrible in their court filings. We just got a report from their legal team. They told us on caucus they have zero evidence.”</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Roman declined to tell investigators who sent him the message or to discuss the briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers, apparently delivered by Kentucky’s secretary of state.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly: Staffer’s behind-the-scenes involvement in false electors effort</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Committee investigators repeatedly asked Roman during his deposition what he knew about behind-the-scenes efforts to undermine the election by a longtime top aide to U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a Butler County Republican and a top Trump ally in the House.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Between Nov. 21 and Dec. 4, 2020, Roman exchanged 25 messages with Kelly’s then-chief-of-staff, Matt Stroia,</span>&nbsp;according to questioning in the deposition transcripts. Those included exchanges that suggested Stroia may have played a more active and earlier role in the efforts by Trump and his allies than was previously known.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>His name had previously surfaced in the committee’s work in connection with efforts to deliver the slates of pro-Trump electors to Pence on Jan. 6.</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has said his office passed along the lists to Pence but that it was Kelly’s office that provided it to him. And while Kelly initially denied Johnson’s claims as “patently false,” the congressman’s office later acknowledged an “internal investigation” found Stroia had been in contact with Johnson’s staff.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">But Roman’s deposition before the Jan. 6 Committee suggests Stroia may also have played a role in organizing a raucous Nov. 25 state Senate hearing in Gettysburg, during which&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Mastriano&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">and Trump lawyer&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Rudy Giuliani and&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Jenna Ellis</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">pushed unfounded claims of fraud in the Pennsylvania election. Trump called in from Washington to voice his support.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>“I hope it turns out like we envisioned,” Stroia wrote to Roman three days before the hearing in a message quoted in the deposition transcripts.</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During his interview with the Jan. 6 Committee, Roman pleaded the Fifth and refused to answer questions about it or discuss whether he or Stroia had any involvement in organizing the Gettysburg hearing.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But other messages cited in Roman’s deposition show&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stroia was in direct contact with&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Giuliani</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, who spearheaded Trump’s election challenges in the state. In one exchange with Roman, Stroia said he’d directed the president’s lawyer to talk to Roman instead.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Do you know why Mr. Giuliani would have been calling Mike Kelly’s chief of staff ... about presidential election issues rather than you, who was acting as director of election day operations for the campaign?” committee staffers asked. He added: “I told him that you will know everything I do.”</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked to explain, Roman again pleaded the Fifth.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Doug Mastriano and<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">&nbsp;Jenna Ellis:</span>&nbsp;The state senator and Trump lawyer sought access to Pennsylvania voting machines</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The committee’s interview with Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis also shed light on Mastriano’s postelection activities.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We made good headway convincing [hopefully] two counties with Dominion machines in Pennsylvania,”&nbsp;<b>Mastriano wrote in a Dec. 28 email to Ellis,</b>&nbsp;according to the transcript.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In another email, Mastriano makes reference to efforts to gain access to “ballot images.”<b>&nbsp;Ellis declined to tell investigators why Mastriano was interested in that.</b></span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a Dec. 29 email, Mastriano told Ellis that he’d emailed Trump himself with a letter related to “securing voluntary access for Dominion forensics.”</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>Fulton County later gave a third-party firm access to its Dominion voting machines, facilitated by Mastriano and state Sen. Judy Ward, R-Blair, for a supposed “audit” of the votes.</b>&nbsp;That prompted the state to decertify those voting machines and force the county to obtain new ones. It wasn’t immediately clear which other counties Mastriano and other Trump allies sought to hand over access to voting machines.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Ellis&nbsp;</b>was also questioned about her contacts with&nbsp;<b>Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler&nbsp;</b>and Jake Corman and Kim Ward, the GOP leaders of the State Senate</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">.&nbsp;She declined to answer questions</span>, however, on any efforts she and Giuliani had made to pressure them to set aside the state’s election results.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Cutler previously told the committee that Giuliani and Ellis called him daily during the run-up to Congress’ certification of the election, looking to push a baseless theory that state legislatures could set aside election results based on unsupported suspicions of fraud and appoint a new slate of Electoral College delegates instead.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Cutler said he largely avoided those calls, thinking they were inappropriate and had his attorneys respond, asking Giuliani and Ellis to stop contacting him.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">Jeffrey Clark: A White House plan to sue Pennsylvania in the U.S. Supreme Court</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">In December 2020, Trump had White House lawyers draft a complaint to sue Pennsylvania in the U.S. Supreme Court over the administration of its election, according to committee questioning in the deposition of former Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Clark, a Philadelphia native, h</span>as emerged as a central focus for the committee due to his role in a drama in which Trump briefly considered appointing him attorney general in the waning days of his administration.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Clark had been introduced to the president by U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican and key ally of the president in Congress. And according to earlier testimony before the committee, Clark expressed a willingness to use the Justice Department to pressure state legislatures in battleground states to overturn their election results despite no evidence of significant fraud.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">On Monday, the Jan. 6 Committee referred him to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During two contentious deposition interviews with the committee in November 2021 and February 2022, Clark refused to answer almost any questions about his relationship to Perry, his conversations with Trump, or the ideas he floated on how the Justice Department could help contest the election. He repeatedly invoked executive privilege — the doctrine that allows presidents and their staff to resist some legislative oversight — as well as his&nbsp;<b>Fifth Amendment&nbsp;</b>right against self-incrimination.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He also balked at answering questions about the draft complaint that a White House assistant sent to top officials at the Justice Department on Dec. 29, 2020, for a suit against Pennsylvania. Correspondence referenced in the deposition of Ellis, the Trump lawyer, also referenced a Trump campaign plan to ask the Supreme Court to order new elections in as many as eight states to “ensure electoral integrity.” Those suits were never filed.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b>Instead, the Trump campaign filed a brief in support of a long-shot lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton</b>, seeking to overturn Pennsylvania’s election. The justices declined to hear the case.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For his part, Clark during his deposition — in one of his only substantive exchanges with committee members — lamented the current partisan state of politics in Washington, recalling his own upbringing in a primarily white, working-class neighborhood near the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“My dad was a truck driver who never graduated from high school,” he said. “He was a lifelong Democrat and a Catholic. My mom was a lifelong Republican and a Protestant. I wound up as a blend of the two, a Catholic conservative Republican.”</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">His lawyer Harry MacDougald was more acerbic.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> He called the Jan. 6 committee’s questioning “railroading” and accused members of indulging in a “paranoid fantasy.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It is not enough in Washington to merely disagree with someone about policy questions,” he said. “Instead, they must be destroyed. Those who disagree with Mr. Clark seek his destruction by any means available.</span>”</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><b style="box-sizing: inherit;">The QAnon Hummer Duo: Coordination among right-wing extremist groups</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">Deposition transcripts were also released Wednesday for two Virginia men who made headlines in Philadelphia when they showed up outside the 2020 vote count at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in a&nbsp;<b>Hummer filled with guns and emblazoned with QAnon stickers.</b></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">But the transcripts show neither Joshua Macias, president of the organization Veterans for Trump, nor his bodyguard, Antonio LaMotta, were forthcoming in their interviews with committee investigators.&nbsp;<b>Both men asserted their Fifth Amendment&nbsp;</b>rights again and again, citing their ongoing prosecution in Philadelphia for weapons violations and attempted election interference.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">(They were both later convicted on the weapons counts in October, but acquitted on the election related charges. LaMotta has since been federally charged with illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6.)</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">The committee’s investigators attempted to quiz both men on their contacts with other right-wing extremist groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters — the leaders of which Macias and LaMotta were shown in videos to have interacted with Jan. 5.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">One video played during an earlier committee hearing showed Macias meeting with Enrique Tarrio, then-president of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, head of the Oath Keepers, in a Washington parking garage the day before the Capitol attack. Committee members have previously cited the video to suggest some coordination among extremist groups in the run-up to Jan. 6.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But when asked in his deposition how he came to be in the garage, Macias remained tight lipped.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I walked,” he responded.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Investigators asked him why. “I was asked to,” he said.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By whom? “Someone said, ‘Hey come here,” Macias replied.</span></p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">He refused to say what they discussed in that meeting.</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);">As for whether he considered himself a QAnon adherent, Macias responded: “I do not ascribe to people’s beliefs. I have my own belief system.”</p><p class="defaultStyledText-sc-1wxyvyl-0 hQuzhP body-paragraph" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5rem; padding: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.1px; line-height: 2.5rem; color: rgb(25, 25, 25);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Philadelphia Inquirer staff writers Jonathan Lai and Jonathan Tamari contributed to this article.</span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><span class="mw-headline" /></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">how jbc&nbsp; did he go from straight GOP corp white shoe to trumpista insurrectionist? eastman? anti-commie?</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/jeffrey-clark-trump-election.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/jeffrey-clark-trump-election.html</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div>Jeffrey Clark Was Considered Unassuming. Then He Plotted With Trump.</div><div>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.</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>By Katie Benner and Charlie Savage</div><div>Published Jan. 24, 2021</div><div>Updated June 16, 2022</div><div>
</div><div>WASHINGTON — It was New Year’s Eve, but the Justice Department’s top leaders had little to celebrate as they discussed Jeffrey Clark, the acting head of the civil division, who had repeatedly pushed them to help President Donald J. Trump undo his electoral loss.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Huddled in the department’s headquarters, they noted that they had 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.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">When the meeting ended not long before midnight, Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen hoped that the matter was 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.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>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.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>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.</b></div><div>
</div><div>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&nbsp;<b>legal privilege issues.</b>&nbsp;And he said all of his official communications “were consistent with law.”</div><div>
</div><div>Image</div><div>“The story kind of shocked me because this is not the Jeff that I know,” said Theodore H. Frank, a friend and former colleague. ]</div><div>
</div><div>Some 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.</div><div>“The story kind of shocked me because this is not the Jeff that I know,” said Theodore H. Frank, a friend and former colleague.&nbsp;<b>“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.”</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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<b>&nbsp;Federalist Society with a skepticism of rules that cut into corporate profits.[WELL SET FOR PENSION PLAN PAYOFF?]</b></span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>But now, Mr. Clark, 53, has become notorious.</b>&nbsp;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.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Friends and critics alike reject the notion that Mr. Clark is an operator, describing him as “nerdy” and “thoughtful.”</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“This is the first wave of character assassination, of people going after the most effective lawyers in the Trump administration,” said&nbsp;<b>Mandy Gunasekara</b>, 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&nbsp;</span>when he was the agency’s administrator.&nbsp;<b>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&nbsp; replace Mr. Rosen w</b>ith Mr. Clark or have the Justice Department contact Georgia lawmakers.</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div>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.<b>&nbsp;He clerked for an appeals court judge, Danny Boggs,</b>&nbsp;who was known for giving prospective clerks quizzes that tested not just their knowledge of the law, but also a range of esoteric trivia.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span></div><div>
</div><div>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.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">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.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>
</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>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,&nbsp; but by a 6-to-3 ruling, it did not.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div>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.<b>&nbsp;Civil division employees said he did not tell them that he would do this, and felt that had circumvented the proper process.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Image</div><div>Acting Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen had admonished Mr. Clark over his push to help President Donald J. Trump overturn the election.]</div><div>
</div><div><b>While 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.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>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</b>, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>After he took the helm of the civil division in September, colleagues began seeing flashes of unusual behavior.</b>&nbsp;Mr. Clark’s name appeared on eyebrow-raising briefs, including what would turn out to be an<b>&nbsp;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.</b>&nbsp;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.</span></div><div>
</div><div>He made clear to lawyers who produced draft briefs that they must spell out his name in full, Jeffrey&nbsp;<b>Bossert</b>&nbsp;Clark, according to a former official.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>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.</b></div><div>
</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style=""><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/16/jan-6-gohmert-lawsuit-pence-524839">https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/16/jan-6-gohmert-lawsuit-pence-524839</a></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx many</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">INSURRECTION FALLOUT</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The Jan. 6 puzzle piece that's going largely ignored</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Rep. Louie Gohmert sued then-Vice President Mike Pence on Dec. 27. Donald Trump’s involvement in the case remains unclear.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), who is now running for Texas attorney general,</span>&nbsp;has said little about his lawsuit. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">By KYLE CHENEY</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>12/16/2021&nbsp;</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">As Donald Trump and his allies squeezed then-Vice President Mike Pence to single-handedly stop Joe Biden’s presidency in the weeks ahead of Jan. 6, they used one particular tool that’s been largely ignored ever since.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) sued Pence on Dec. 27, just as Trump was ratcheting up his pressure campaign against his vice president. Backed by a squad of lawyers associated with Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell,&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gohmert argued Pence should assert unilateral control over certification, governed only by the vague wording of the Twelfth Amendment.</span></b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Gohmert’s move forced Pence to publicly resist Trump’s subversion of the election, only a week before the fateful Jan. 6 joint session of Congress. When the Justice Department stepped in to defend Pence from the lawsuit on Dec. 29, it marked the first time Pence signaled he wouldn’t fold to Trump’s demands.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Pence allies have long believed that Trump played a role in Gohmert’s legal strategy, and they’ve indicated that Trump was frustrated that the Justice Department intervened to defend his vice president against Gohmert’s suit. But what remains unknown is just how involved Trump was in Gohmert’s legal strategy. A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">And while it’s unclear whether the Jan. 6 select panel is probing the genesis of Gohmert’s suit — which was quickly rejected by federal district and appellate courts in Texas — one committee member described it as an important episode in the runup to the violence at the Capitol.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“It’s a significant detail in that it was part of a plan to isolate and coerce Pence,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A litany of new details about Trump’s pressure campaign against Pence have emerged in recent weeks. Those include memos from Trump attorneys John Eastman and Jenna Ellis that lay out fringe legal rationales for halting certification, as well as proof of further public and private force exerted by Trump himself. Gohmert’s suit is rarely mentioned in the publicly available pre-Jan. 6 timetable.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Gohmert’s goal, outlined in the suit, was to force Pence to ignore the 130-year-old law that governs the final certification of presidential elections and instead wield total authority over the proceedings. Pence ultimately decided that he lacked this power and his role was almost entirely ceremonial. He revealed his final decision on Jan. 6, shortly before a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol amid chants that he was a “traitor” and should be hanged.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As for why Gohmert led the suit, Powell has publicly indicated that one reason was because Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has jurisdiction over his home state of Texas. Alito, Powell argued, might have bought more time for pro-Trump forces to reverse the results by blocking Pence from certifying Biden’s victory. (There’s no evidence Alito was considering this).</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Capitol riot worked in Powell’s favor but also against it, in her stated view: It delayed a last-ditch Jan. 6 attempt to seek Supreme Court consideration of Gohmert’s suit but also provided more time for Alito to weigh the suit that afternoon. The decision by Pence and congressional leaders to keep certifying votes after the riot dealt a mortal blow to Gohmert’s legal fight, Powell said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>“Had [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi not rushed, the outcome of the case could have been different, and the President as well,” Powell wrote on her website in September.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Powell did not respond to requests for comment for this story but told POLITICO in September that she “was not speaking with the President in that time frame” around Gohmert’s suit. She did, however, famously meet with Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 18 along with Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn and other advisers working to help Trump stay in power.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Gohmert, who is now running for Texas attorney general, has said little about his lawsuit. His office declined multiple requests for comment.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Texan made headlines at the time, though, after the district court rejected his court challenge. He said the effect of the court decision would leave street violence as the only option to contest the election.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“In effect, the ruling would be that you’ve got to go to the streets and be as violent as antifa and BLM,“ Gohmert said on Newsmax on Jan. 1.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One aspect of Gohmert’s legal fight that went unnoticed at the time but is relevant in hindsight:<b>&nbsp;One of Pence’s Justice Department defenders was Jeffrey Clark</b>, then acting assistant attorney general.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In recent months, House and Senate investigators have revealed that<b>&nbsp;Clark was marshaling allies inside DOJ who might help him deploy the department in support of Trump’s bogus claims of voter fraud.&nbsp;</b>He pressured department leaders to issue a letter calling into question the results in multiple states, a push that then-Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen resisted. Trump came within inches of removing Rosen and installing Clark as acting attorney general, but relented amid a promise of mass resignations.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Rosen told congressional investigators that he viewed Clark’s role in the Gohmert suit as a sign that Clark had begun to come back into the fold, only to realize later that his colleague was still in contact with Trump about taking over the department.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">A source familiar with Rosen’s thinking said that even in hindsight, it’s not clear Clark’s involvement with the Pence suit was improper.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“The outcome in that case was correct, and there’s no evidence even in hindsight so far that Clark tried to do anything sketchy on that front,” the source said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But it’s unclear whether Pence ever realized that Clark — while simultaneously fending off Gohmert’s case — was in talks with Trump about effectively commandeering the DOJ on the president’s behalf. The Senate investigation of Clark’s actions showed that one day after his name first appeared in the Pence case, he told Rosen that Trump would be making him acting attorney general within hours.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">An attorney for Clark declined to answer questions about Clark’s involvement in the Gohmert lawsuit.</font></p><p style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">“Mr Clark has taken a strong stance to protect President Trump’s Executive Privilege,” attorney Harold MacDougald said. “He will continue to do so.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Jan. 6 committee has already voted to hold Clark in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify but has deferred asking the House to send the matter to the Justice Department while it awaits Clark’s return for a deposition as soon as this week. Clark’s attorney has indicated that his client intends to plead the Fifth, and the panel has indicated that it expects Clark to do so on a question-by-question basis.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection meets to vote on pursuing contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">[CONGRESS</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Jan. 6 investigators’ new challenge: Trump allies pleading the Fifth]</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">On Wednesday, Clark’s former deputy Ken Klukowski was seen heading into an interview with Jan. 6 committee investigators.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In revisiting the Gohmert case, POLITICO reached out to each of the lawyers involved, including<b>&nbsp;Powell associates Howard Kleinhendler, Julia Haller and&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lawrence Joseph.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Joseph was one of the attorneys who crafted Texas’ failed legal effort — later joined by Trump with a brief signed by Eastman — to get the Supreme Court to invalidate election results in four key states Biden won.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“I do not talk about litigation with the media unless a client directs me to do so, which has not happened,” Joseph said in an email.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>A fourth attorney, Texas-based William Lewis Sessions,</b>&nbsp;also declined to comment and copied Gohmert’s House email address on the reply.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“The areas of interest you have indicated are ones for which I either have no knowledge or which I believe are protected by a privilege,” he said. “The person who would have the best knowledge is Representative Gohmert, who was one of my clients.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Gohmert did not respond to this email or a subsequent one.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">FILED UNDER: JOE BIDEN, JOE BIDEN 2020, MIKE PENCE, DONALD TRUMP,</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></font></p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</a></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/06/the-glue-that-connects-jeffrey-clark-john-eastman-ginni-thomas-and-the-guy-who-was-air-dropped-into-the-doj-is-charles-kochs-money/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://wallstreetonparade.com/2022/06/the-glue-that-connects-jeffrey-clark-john-eastman-ginni-thomas-and-the-guy-who-was-air-dropped-into-the-doj-is-charles-kochs-money/</a></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in&nbsp;September 1999 the U.S. Department of Justice&nbsp;<a href="https://www.justice.gov/civil/case-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">filed racketeering charges</a>&nbsp;against the major tobacco companies and two of their front groups. The court filings in that case carefully pieced together a half century of conspiratorial conduct and lies that gravely harmed the health of the American people, while lining the pockets of the tobacco industry, its lawyers and its paid shills.</font></font></div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</font></font><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The January 6 Select House Committee has that same, once-in-a-lifetime power in its hands. But that window of opportunity will close soon. The January 6 Committee can connect all the dots of the attempted coup leading to the doorstep of Charles Koch and expose his four decades of establishing front groups to shill for the fossil fuels industry and anti-climate change groups, or it can present a false and narrow view that this was all about the ego and narcissism of Donald Trump.</font></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Charles Koch is the Chairman and CEO of one of the largest private companies in the world, Koch Industries, a fossil fuels and chemicals conglomerate that has been a serial polluter of the air and water for decades. According to Forbes, Koch has a net worth of $59.8 billion, making him the 17<span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 1; position: relative; bottom: 1ex;">th</span>&nbsp;richest man in the world. Charles Koch, and his late brother, David, functioned as backroom party bosses,&nbsp;<a href="http://wallstreetonparade.com/2015/04/faux-democracy-and-the-tea-party-how-far-back-does-it-go/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">behind the veil of a sprawling network of tax-exempt front groups</a>, for 40 years.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wall Street On Parade</span>&nbsp;</b>has already produced the evidence tying the groups involved in the planning of the January 6 event to Charles Koch. See our report:&nbsp;<a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/01/the-money-trail-to-the-siege-at-the-capitol-leads-to-charles-koch-and-koch-industries/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Money Trail to the Siege at the Capitol Leads to Charles Koch and Koch Industries</a>.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>We have already&nbsp;<a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/2018/07/how-did-koch-industries-law-firm-grab-control-at-the-white-house/" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">written about</a>&nbsp;how the Trump administration was staffed up with Koch-related people and took its marching orders from a Koch-related entity, Freedom Partners.</b></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There is also documented evidence that the Koch network engaged in a multi-faceted strategy to discourage progressives and liberals from turning out in the 2016 presidential election, thus tipping the victory to Trump. Not only did the Koch network fund Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Partners Action Fund ads portraying Democrats as tax and spend bureaucrats but the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/07/23/koch-industries-is-staffing-up-with-voter-data-scientists-to-tip-the-november-election-to-the-extreme-right/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Koch-controlled i360 voter database and voter-targeting operations</a>&nbsp;may have demoralized the progressive base from turning out while those same operations spurred Republicans to the polls.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>And, today, we will show how key collaborators in the attempted coup on January 6 – Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, Ginni Thomas, Cleta Mitchell, and&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Kenneth Klukowski –</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;the attorney who was air-dropped into the U.S. Department of Justice j</span>ust 35 days before the end of Trump’s term – all have ties to front groups funded by Charles Koch or his related nonprofits.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Let’s start with<b>&nbsp;Jeffrey Clark,</b>&nbsp;the environmental lawyer at the Department of Justice with no criminal experience that Trump wanted to name U.S. Attorney General because he was willing to go all-in with the attempted coup.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After the failed coup, Clark was out of a job at the Department of Justice. He was, in short order,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2021/07/21/2266634/0/en/NCLA-Hires-Former-Asst-Atty-Gen-Jeff-Clark-to-Join-Battle-Against-Unlawful-Administrative-Power.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">named Chief of Litigation and Director of Strategy</a>&nbsp;at a group called the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA).</span>&nbsp;That’s a curious hire for someone likely facing a long criminal investigation and possible conviction.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>NCLA has received millions of dollars from Charles Koch related entities.</b>&nbsp;The Charles G. Koch Foundation gave NCLA $1 million in 2017, $1 million again in 2018, and $1 million again in 2019 for “general operating support,” according to its publicly-available 990 tax filings with the IRS. The Charles Koch Institute gave NCLA $1 million in 2020. Donors Trust, a dark money nonprofit with Charles Koch’s fingerprints all over it, gave NCLA more than $2 million from 2018 through 2020, according to its 990 filings.</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In addition to needing a job after the failed coup attempt, Jeffrey Clark needed a plugged-in attorney. Somehow, he found his way to</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b style="">Harry MacDougald</b><b style="">,</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://ccedlaw.com/personnel/harry-macdougald/" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">a Managing Partner at Caldwell, Carlson, Elliott & DeLoach</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The fossil fuels industry watchdog, DeSmog, describes MacDougald as follows:</span></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“MacDougald was&nbsp;part of the legal team&nbsp;that worked with the&nbsp;Southeastern Legal Foundation&nbsp;to challenge the&nbsp;EPA‘s endangerment finding on greenhouse gases.&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In its lawsuit against the&nbsp;EPA,&nbsp;Southeastern Legal&nbsp;identified its allies in the effort&nbsp;as ‘like-minded organizations’ including the&nbsp;Competitive Enterprise Institute,&nbsp;Heritage Foundation,&nbsp;Cato Institute, and the&nbsp;Independent Women’s Forum, among others.”</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">DeSmog notes that <b>MacDougald spoke at the Heartland Institute’s “America First Energy Conference” in New Orleans in 2018</b>. The Heartland Institute is a climate science denier that has received more than $26 million from two Koch-related groups, Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust, according to the Conservative Transparency Project using publicly available 990 IRS tax filings. The conference was promoted as follows:</font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“The purpose of this event is to promote and expand energy freedom in the United States, as outlined in<b> President Donald Trump’s bold America First Energy Plan, </b>a proposal first released during the 2016 presidential campaign. The president’s plan marks a decisive change in direction from the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Obama administration’s ‘war on fossil fuels’…</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></font></p><p style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style="">Two of the allied groups mentioned above, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, have long histories with Koch money.&nbsp;</b>Charles Koch and his late brother, David, were actually&nbsp;<a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/secret-owners-of-cato-institute-surface-as-koch-brothers-move-to-take-control/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">secret owners of the Cato Institute for decades</a>. Greenpeace has called the Heritage Foundation “<a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/fighting-climate-chaos/climate-deniers/front-groups/the-heritage-foundation/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Koch Industries’ Climate Denial Front Group</a>” and reports that it has received $6,130,201 from Koch foundations from 1997 through 2017.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was firing off all of those emails to Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, to press for the attempted coup, had previously received $1,051,214 in compensation from the Heritage Foundation&nbsp;</b>over a number of years. Clarence Thomas failed to report that compensation on his financial disclosure forms at the Supreme Court, even though he was required to do so.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The ties between Ginni Thomas and another attempted coup collaborator,&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cleta Mitchell</span>, run deep</b>&nbsp;– with all roads leading to Koch money. As we reported in March:</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the emails that Ginni Thomas sent to Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, one of the people that she told Meadows to listen to was attorney Cleta Mitchell – a woman who has both a longstanding association with Ginni Thomas as well as with Koch front groups.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-stat/graphics/politics/jan-6-call-logs-white-house/daily-diary-of-president-donald-trump.pdf?itid=lk_interstitial_manual_10" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Trump’s phone log</a>&nbsp;for January 6 shows that Cleta Mitchell was one of the people that Trump spoke with at 7 :53 p.m. on the evening of the attack on the Capitol.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cleta Mitchell has been in the news previously as the lawyer who was on the January 2, 2021 call with Donald Trump when he phoned the Secretary of State of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger, and told him: “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/audio-trump-berates-georgia-secretary-of-state-urges-him-to-find-votes/2021/01/03/aba64f5f-8c3c-490f-af34-618ccea732d7_video.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I only need 11,000 votes. Fellas, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break</a>.” That call took place two months after the presidential election. (Mitchell stepped down from her long-term employment at law firm Foley & Lardner after her presence on that call was made public.)</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Cleta Mitchell is also the attorney who filed an amicus brief in the&nbsp;Citizens United&nbsp;case before the Supreme Court that was decided on January 21, 2010. That case would be the tipping point to allow unlimited sums from corporations – like Koch Industries — in U.S. elections.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Just eight days after Justice Thomas voted in favor of that decision to open the floodgates to corporate money in campaigns, Cleta Mitchell made a move that looked very much like a quid pro quo to Ginni Thomas.&nbsp;</b>Mitchell, then still a partner at Foley & Lardner, filed an application with the Internal Revenue Service to set up a nonprofit called Liberty Central, Inc. on behalf of Ginni Thomas. According to&nbsp;<a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/271222875" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">IRS tax filings</a>, Liberty Central&nbsp;received a combined $1.478 million from dark money donors in 2009 and 2010.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the IRS tax filings for Liberty Central for 2009 and 2010, Ginni (Virginia) Thomas is listed as President and CEO. The 2010 tax filing shows that Ginni Thomas received $120,511 in compensation from Liberty Central that year. She eventually stepped down from an official post at the nonprofit, stating she would serve as a consultant.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Liberty Central&nbsp;</b>had the fingerprints of Charles Koch all over it. Acting as General Counsel in 2010 for Liberty Central was a former lawyer for the Charles G. Koch Foundation, Sarah Field. A former Koch lobbyist, Matt Schlapp, served on the Board of Liberty Central at inception.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mitchell’s law firm, Foley & Lardner,&nbsp;<a href="https://bdgrdemocracy.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/rep-vos-e-mail-reveals-koch-industry-lobbyists-authored-policy-pushing-milwaukee-initiative-now-to-be-implemented-statewide/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">employed three attorneys working as lobbyists for a Koch Industries affiliate</a>, Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC in Madison, Wisconsin in 2011. The Koch-related lobbyists were Ray Carey, Jason Childress and Kathleen Walby.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mitchell was a former lobbyist at the federal level in years 2005 through 2008 for the Alliance for Charitable Reform, a project of The Philanthropy Roundtable, another tax-exempt organization. Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, two dark money groups which also have Charles Koch’s fingerprints all over them, were spun off from the Philanthropy Roundtable in 1999. (See our report:&nbsp;<a href="https://wallstreetonparade.com/koch-footprints-lead-to-secret-slush-fund-to-keep-fear-alive/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Koch Footprints Lead to Secret Slush Fund to Keep Fear Alive</a>.)</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The&nbsp;<a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/person/3200/disclosure/30783/clarence-thomas/" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">financial disclosure forms</a>&nbsp;filed by Clarence Thomas show that from 2011 through 2017, Ginni Thomas received a “salary” from the Daily Caller,</b>&nbsp;a right-wing spin organization founded in 2010 by Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson&nbsp;and former&nbsp;Dick Cheney&nbsp;aide Neil Patel. Its creation was announced at a gathering at the Heritage Foundation. The Daily Caller’s affiliated News Foundation has received funding from the&nbsp;Koch Family Foundations&nbsp;and the&nbsp;Charles Koch Institute.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the previous scandal over Clarence Thomas failing to report that Ginni Thomas had received income from the Heritage Foundation, there are no dollar ranges listed on his financial disclosure forms to show the range of “salary” Ginni Thomas actually received from the Daily Caller from 2011 to 2017.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">From 2011 through 2020, Clarence Thomas shows that his wife was receiving “salary and benefits” from&nbsp;<b>Liberty Consulting.</b>&nbsp;But again, there is no range of salary and benefits shown. Instead, Liberty Consulting is listed under “Investments” and shows a “book value” of $100,000 to $250,000 in 2019, which then drops to $15,000 to $50,000 in 2020.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then there is<b>&nbsp;Ken Klukowski,</b>&nbsp;the man air-dropped into the Department of Justice just 35 days before Trump’s term ended to work at the elbow of Jeffrey Clark. The Select Committee believes that Klukowski may have been involved in drafting the proposed letter to state officials which falsely claimed that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote totals in those states and the states should consider sending “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump.”</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Klukowski had been a writer at the right-wing outlet, Breitbart, which was formerly led by former Trump White House advisor, Steve Bannon. Bannon was the long-tenured filmmaker for Citizens United, the nonprofit involved in the history-making case at the U.S. Supreme Court that opened the floodgates to corporate money in campaigns. Bannon made right-wing propaganda documentaries for Citizens United like “Fire from the Heartland,” a&nbsp;<b>glowing tribute to Michele Bachmann; “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1961604/" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Undefeated</a></b>,” profiling the rise of&nbsp;<b>Sarah Palin&nbsp;</b>to national prominence and the darling of the T<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ea Party movement; “<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1624385/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Generation Zero</a>,” blaming the 2008 financial crash on liberals instead of the Wall Street bank executives who presided over the unprecedented frauds; and “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUvGQWAxJI8" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Occupy Unmasked</a>,” demonizing the young people attempting to remove their democracy from the&nbsp;<a href="http://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/09/freedom-of-the-press-under-assault-in-new-york-city/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">iron grip of the one percent</a>&nbsp;as sinister criminals.</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Klukowski got his law degree from George Mason University, one of the largest and longest recipients of Koch money</b>.&nbsp; In just the three most recent years that public 990 tax filings are available, they show that the Charles G. Koch Foundation gave a total of $46.89 million to George Mason University from 2017 through 2019.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2018, New York Times reporters Erica L. Green&nbsp;and&nbsp;Stephanie Saul&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/us/koch-donors-george-mason.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">wrote about</a>&nbsp;how newly-released documents showed tha<b>t Koch’s money came with strings attached at George Mason University:</b></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The documents reveal in surprising detail that for years, as George Mason grew from a little-known commuter school to a major public university and a center of libertarian scholarship, millions of dollars in donations from conservative-leaning donors like the Charles Koch Foundation had come with strings attached.</span></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 40px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“As early as 1990, entities controlled by the billionaire brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch were given a seat on a committee to pick candidates for a professorship that they funded,</span>&nbsp;the records show. Similar arrangements that continued through 2009 gave donors decision-making roles in selecting candidates for key economics appointments at the&nbsp;<b>Mercatus Center,&nbsp;</b>a Koch-funded think tank on campus that studies markets and regulation. The appointments, which also created faculty lines at George Mason, were steered to professors who, like the Kochs, embraced unconstrained free markets.”</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And, finally, there is&nbsp;<b>John Eastman,</b>&nbsp;the Trump lawyer who ranted on the stage before the crowd at the Capitol on January 6 about widespread voter fraud in the election and, according to the Select Committee, played a key role in the attempted coup.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Both Cleta Mitchell and John Eastman are tied to the Public Interest Legal Foundation.&nbsp;</span><a href="https://publicinterestlegal.org/about/board-of-directors/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mitchell is the Chair of the Board and Eastman is a Director</a>. The New York Times has reported that it was Mitchell who “enlisted John Eastman, the lawyer who crafted specious legal theories claiming Vice President Mike Pence could keep Mr. Trump in power.”</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Eastman is also Chairman of the Board of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM</b>) according to its website, a group opposing same-sex marriage.&nbsp;<em style="background: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wall Street On Parade</em>&nbsp;looked into that group in 2011. We found multiple ties to the Koch network’s pursuit of the Citizens United decision at the U.S. Supreme Court.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When Ginni Thomas filed her registration statement for her own tea party group, Liberty Central, Inc., with the state of West Virginia on December 31, 2009, she listed her accountant as&nbsp;<b>Neil Corkery</b></span>&nbsp;with an address of 8665 Sudley Road, Suite 182 in Manassas, Virginia. According to a UPS store employee located there, there was no other business located at this site; just post office boxes.&nbsp; When Ginni Thomas filed her first IRS 990 form for tax year 2009 for Liberty Central, she listed her tax preparer as Conlon and Associates LLC.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These same two names, Neil Corkery and<b>&nbsp;Conlon and Associates LLC,&nbsp;</b>would end up on the 2009 tax filings of the National Organization for Marriage.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The IRS 2009 tax filing for the National Organization for Marriage, Inc. shows it took in $7.1 million and made five grants totaling $2,105,000.&nbsp; Stand for Marriage Maine received 93 percent of those funds, or $1,960,000.&nbsp;Stand for Marriage Maine waged the successful 2009 repeal of same-sex marriage in Maine, using the same tactics and, indeed, the&nbsp;<b>same ad and marketing firm that was used in the California Proposition 8 battle.</b></font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Secret donors washing money through a 501(c)(4) tax exempt organization and then funneling it to a Political Action Committee in Maine brought a request for an investigation to the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices by Fred Karger, founder of Californians Against Hate.&nbsp; The Commission initiated an investigation.&nbsp; Stepping forward to represent both the National Organization for Marriage and Stand for Marriage Maine PAC was the law firm&nbsp;<b>Bopp,</b>&nbsp;Coleson & Bostrom.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James Bopp of Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom is (wait for it) the lawyer who represented Citizens United in the lower courts and, hoping to gut campaign financing reform, maneuvered the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The law firm Bopp, Coleson & Bostrom is located in Terre Haute, Indiana.&nbsp;What is the statistical probability of it being sheer coincidence that an Indiana law firm is involved in a nonprofit advocacy group case in Maine involving secret donors; also involved in the Citizens United case before the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C. involving secret donors; and the wife of&nbsp;Justice Clarence Thomas is using the same Neil Corkery and Conlon and Associates for her Tea Party nonprofit as Bopp’s anti same-sex marriage clients in the Maine case?</font></p><p style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 24px; font-size: small; border: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We strongly urge the January 6 Select Committee to provide the full, unvarnished truth to the American people.</font></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/14/inside-explosive-oval-office-confrontation-three-days-before-jan-6/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/14/inside-explosive-oval-office-confrontation-three-days-before-jan-6/</a></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div style=""><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /></font><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wapo no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">New details emerge of Oval Office confrontation three days before Jan. 6</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jeffrey Clark, a mid-level Justice Department official, wanted Trump to name him attorney general in a plan aimed at potentially overturning the election</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Image without a caption</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Michael Kranish</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">June 14, 2022 a</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[Jeffrey Clark, assistant attorney general for the environment and natural resources division, speaks during a news conference, flanked by Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler, left, and Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, right, in September 2020. (Susan Walsh/Pool/AP)]</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Three days before Congress was slated to certify the 2020 presidential election, a little-known Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark rushed to meet President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss a last-ditch attempt to reverse the results.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Clark, an environmental lawyer by trade, had outlined a plan in a letter he wanted to send to the leaders of key states Joe Biden won. It said that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns” about the vote and that the states should consider sending “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump” for Congress to approve.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In fact, Clark’s bosses had warned there was not evidence to overturn the election and had rejected his letter days earlier. Now they learned Clark was about to meet with Trump.</b>&nbsp;Acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen tracked down his deputy, Richard Donoghue, who had been walking on the Mall in muddy jeans and an Army T-shirt. There was no time to change. They raced to the Oval Office.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Rosen and Donoghue listened<b>, Clark told Trump that he would send the letter if the president named him attorney general.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“History is calling,” Clark told the president, according to a deposition from Donoghue excerpted in a recent court filing. “This is our opportunity. We can get this done.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Donoghue urged Trump not to put Clark in charge, calling him “not competent” and warning of “mass resignations” by Justice Department officials if he became the nation’s top law enforcement official, according to Donoghue’s account.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“What happens if, within 48 hours, we have hundreds of resignations from your Justice Department because of your actions?” Donoghue said he asked Trump. “What does that say about your leadership?”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Clark’s letter and his Oval Office meeting set off one of the tensest chapters during Trump’s effort to overturn the election, which culminated three days later with rioters storming the U.S. Capitol. His plan could have decapitated the Justice Department leadership and could have overturned the election.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Clark’s actions have been the focus of a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation and an ongoing probe by the Justice Department’s inspector general, and now are expected to be closely examined during June hearings by the House committee investigating the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The House Jan. 6 investigation committee has conducted over 800 interviews with insurrectionists and Trump aides. Here’s what’s next. (Video: Blair Guild/The Washington Post)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>After the New York Times reported in January 2021 about Clark’s actions, he said he engaged in a “candid discussion of options and pros and cons with the president,” denied that he had a plan to oust Rosen, and criticized others in the meeting for talking publicly and “distorting” the discussion.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Now, however, key witnesses have provided Congress with a fuller account of Clark’s actions, including new details about the confrontation that took place in the Jan. 3 Oval Office meeting, which lasted nearly three hours.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A reconstruction of the events by The Washington Post, based on the court filings, depositions, Senate and House reports, previously undisclosed emails, and interviews with knowledgeable government officials, shows how close the country came to crisis three days before the insurrection.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The evidence, which fills in crucial details about Clark’s efforts, includes an email showing h<b>e was sent a draft of a letter outlining a plan to try to overturn the election by a just-arrived Justice Department official who had once written a book claiming President Barack Obama planned to “subvert the Constitution.”</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But larger mysteries could still be solved at an upcoming Jan. 6 committee hearing slated to examine Clark’s actions, including the crucial question of whether Clark and his allies were acting on their own initiative — or whether they were one piece of a larger, well-planned effort to keep Trump in power. That question gets to the heart of the committee’s professed mission: proving there was a “coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Clark, 55, and his lawyer, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Harry MacDougald, declined to comment.</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The House committee unanimously voted to hold Clark in contempt of Congress after he declined in December to answer most questions on grounds that his interactions with Trump were privileged. But Clark later appeared before the committee and asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination,</span>&nbsp;CNN reported; his testimony from that appearance has not been released.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who participated in the Judiciary Committee’s investigation, said investigators should key in on whether Clark was working on behalf of others not yet identified.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“It certainly could be a symptom of a much larger and more coherent plan than has currently been disclosed,” Whitehouse said.&nbsp;<b>Clark “does not appear to have elections expertise or experience, which raises the question, did he really sit down at his computer and type it out or does somebody produce it for him?”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Clark, who attended Harvard and got his law degree from Georgetown, built a career focused on environmental law at the Washington law firm of Kirkland & Ellis and served in the George W. Bush administration’s Justice Department.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Clark arrived at Trump’s Justice Department in 2018 to head an office that enforces environmental laws and regulations, and then in&nbsp;<b>September 2020 became acting head of the department’s civil division.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">When Attorney General William P. Barr resigned as of Dec. 23 after declaring that the Justice Department had not found evidence of mass fraud in Trump’s election loss, Rosen became the acting attorney general<b>. Trump, though, complained to Rosen that the Justice Department still wasn’t adequately investigating his claims of massive fraud.&nbsp;</b>(A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Clark would soon emerge as someone interested in pursuing Trump’s claims. He found a key ally in Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.</span>), one of the earliest proponents of Trump’s voter fraud claims. Perry later told radio station WITF that he had&nbsp;<b>worked with Clark on “various legislative matters” over the previous four years.</b>&nbsp;<b>When Perry called Donoghue in late December to complain that the Justice Department hadn’t sufficiently investigated the election, he mentioned Clark as someone “who could really get in there and do something about this,</b>” according to the Senate Judiciary Committee majority report.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shortly before Christmas, Clark and Perry met, according to the Senate report. Perry told WITF that “when President Trump asked if I would make an introduction, I obliged.”</span>&nbsp;A Perry spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Clark then met with Trump in the Oval Office, according to the Senate report. When Rosen found out Clark had talked privately with Trump, he was livid, telling Clark in a Dec. 26 phone call that, “You didn’t tell me about it in advance. You didn’t get authorization. You didn’t tell me about it after the fact. This can’t happen,” according to Rosen’s interview with the Senate Judiciary Committee.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Clark was “somewhat apologetic” and promised he wouldn’t do it again without permission, according to Rosen. But Clark had already made an impression on the president. The next day, Trump told Rosen in a phone call that “people are very mad with the Justice Department” not investigating voter fraud and referred to having met with Clark.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Rosen told Trump that the Justice Department could not “flip a switch and change the election,” according to notes of the conversation cited by the Senate Judiciary Committee.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“I don’t expect you to do that,” Trump responded, according to the notes.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">&nbsp;“Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”[PERRY? CRUZ?]&nbsp;</span>&nbsp;The president urged Rosen to “just have a press conference.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Rosen refused. “We don’t see that,” he told Trump. “We’re not going to have a press conference.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">A top Clark associate, meanwhile, prepared to send him a draft of the letter to state legislatures.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);"><b>Kenneth Klukowski&nbsp;</b>had arrived at the Justice Department just two weeks before the Oval Office meeting to become legal counsel to the civil division overseen by Clark.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He had long been an outspoken figure on the right, working as senior legal analyst for the conservative Breitbart website and co-writing a 2010 book about President Barack Obama titled “The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency.” Before joining Clark’s team, he’d served as special counsel to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, according to his Facebook page.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">At 4:20 p.m. on Dec. 28, 2020, he sent an email that has been a central mystery in the Clark episode. The email to Clark, obtained by The Post, has the subject line, “email to you,” and an attachment titled “Draft Letter JBC 12 28 20.docx.” The email text simply said “Attached.” The attached letter, which has been previously released, was titled<b>&nbsp;“Pre-Decisional & Deliberative/Attorney-Client or Legal Work Product – Georgia Proof of Concept.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The House committee has sought to determine if Klukowski wrote the letter and whether he did so alone.<b>&nbsp;Klukowski is cooperating with the committee,</b>&nbsp;according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a closed-door session.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In an April court filing, a committee lawyer said there is evidence suggesting the letter “may have been drafted by Ken Klukowski.” Whitehouse said he wants to know if someone produced the letter for Klukowski. Klukowski and&nbsp;<b>his lawyer, Edward Greim,&nbsp;</b>declined to comment.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Twenty minutes after Klukowski sent the document, Clark sent Rosen and Donoghue an email with the subject line “Two Urgent Action Items.” One was an attachment of the letter that Klukowski had just sent to him. At the bottom of the letter was a place for it to be signed by Rosen, Donoghue and Clark.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I set it up for signature by the three of us,” Clark wrote. “I think we should get it out as soon as possible.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The second item was Clark’s request for an intelligence briefing about an allegation that the Chinese were controlling U.S.-based voting machines via internet-connected smart thermostats, a theory that the Justice Department had dismissed as not credible.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Donoghue said in his deposition that he found Clark’s proposed letter to state leaders and request for the intelligence briefing to be “very strange” and “completely inconsistent with the department’s role ...[and] with what our investigations to date, had revealed.</b>”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“There’s no chance I would sign this letter or anything remotely like this,” Donoghue emailed Clark on the afternoon of Dec. 28, 2020. He stressed that the Justice Department investigations into possible fraud were so small that they “would simply not impact the outcome of the election.” Donoghue told Clark that asking the states to reconsider their certified election results “would be a grave step for the Department to take and could have tremendous constitutional, political, and social ramifications for the country.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Rosen summoned Clark to a meeting along with Donoghue. Clark explained that he been looking at allegations on his own and had concerns about the reliability of the election, according to Donoghue’s deposition. “He mentioned this smart thermostat thing,” Donoghue said, surmising that Clark had read information in lawsuits and “various theories that seemed to be derived from the Internet.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donoghue told Clark in the meeting that the proposed letter was “wildly inappropriate and irresponsible … nothing less than the department meddling in the outcome of a presidential election,” Donoghue told the Senate committee.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Rosen was stunned. He had known Clark for years and once had worked with him at Kirkland & Ellis. Rosen told the Senate committee that he wondered “what’s going on with Jeff Clark. That this is inconsistent with how I perceived him in the past.” At several points, Clark asked that the word “acting” be removed from his title as head of the civil division, which Rosen said he declined.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>With the meeting concluded, Rosen and Donoghue thought Clark’s effort was over. Clark told them, “I think they are good ideas. You don’t like them. Okay. Then, I guess we won’t do it,” according to Rosen’s Senate committee interview.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">But Clark’s effort to woo Trump with his ideas was just beginning.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Several days later, Rosen learned that Clark had once again met with Trump — and once again without informing him in advance, Rosen told the Senate committee. Clark told Rosen that Trump wanted him to consider becoming attorney general. Rosen was livid. “He says he won’t do it again. He did it again,” Rosen recalled.&nbsp;<b>But Rosen said he did not have the authority to fire Clark, as he would have liked to do, because Clark was a presidential appointee.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Shortly after the clash between Clark and the senior Justice Department officials,&nbsp;<b>Clark told Rosen that if he reversed his position and signed the letter to the Georgia legislature, then Rosen could remain attorney general,&nbsp;</b>Rosen told the Senate committee. Rosen refused. Donoghue told Clark that “you went behind your boss’s back, and you’re proposing things that are outside your domain and you don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rosen told the Senate committee.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The following day, Jan. 3, 2021, Clark told Rosen that he had just talked with Trump and that “the president had decided to offer him the position, and he had decided to take it. So that I would be replaced that Sunday, and the department would chart a different path,</b>” Rosen told the Senate committee.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I don’t get to be fired by someone who works for me,” Rosen said he told Clark. Rosen then called and asked to meet with Trump.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Donoghue, meanwhile, had begun taking things off his office wall and packing boxes, presuming he would resign if it was true Clark was about to be named attorney general,&nbsp;</b>Donoghue told the Senate committee.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A meeting in the Oval Office was quickly arranged with Clark, Rosen, and other Justice Department and White House lawyers. Rosen found Trump sitting behind the Resolute Desk, while other White House and Justice Department officials took their seats. Donoghue, still in his muddy jeans and T-shirt, remained outside. The Post had just broken the news that Trump had a day earlier pressured Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to find enough votes to win the state. Raffensperger had told Trump his allegations of fraud that could overturn the election were baseless.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">While Donoghue was watching television coverage about The Post’s report, a White House official emerged and said, “The president wants you in this meeting.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Around the time Donoghue entered, Clark was telling Trump that if he became attorney general he would “conduct real investigations that would, in his view, uncover widespread fraud,” Donoghue said in his House deposition.&nbsp;<b>Clark vowed to send the letter he drafted to Georgia and other states and said that “this was a last opportunity to sort of set things straight with this defective election, and that he could do it, and he had the intelligence and the will and the desire to pursue these matters in the way that the president thought most appropriate.”</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Everyone else in the room told Trump they opposed Clark, Donoghue said.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Trump repeatedly went after Rosen and Donoghue, saying they hadn’t pursued voter fraud allegations.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“You two,” Trump said, pointing to the two top Justice Department officials. “You two haven’t done anything. You two don’t care. You haven’t taken appropriate actions<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Everyone tells me I should fire you.”</span></b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump continually circled back to the idea of replacing Rosen with Clark.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“What do I have to lose?” the president asked</b>, according to Donoghue.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Mr. President, you have a great deal to lose,” Donoghue said he responded. “Is this really how you want your administration to end? You’re going to hurt the country, you’re going to hurt the department, you’re going to hurt yourself, with people grasping at straws on these desperate theories about election fraud, and is this really in anyone’s best interest?”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Donoghue warned Trump that putting Clark in charge would be likely to lead to mass resignations at the Justice Department.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Well, suppose I do this,” Trump said to Donoghue. “Suppose I replace [Rosen] with [Clark], what would you do?”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“Sir, I would resign immediately,” Donoghue said he responded. “There’s no way I’m serving under this guy [Clark].”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump then turned to Steve Engel, the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, whom Trump reportedly had considered for a seat on the Supreme Court.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Steve, you wouldn’t resign, would you?” Trump asked.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Absolutely I would, Mr. President. You’d leave me no choice,” Engel responded, according to Donoghue’s account. Engel declined to comment.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“And we’re not the only ones,” Donoghue said he told Trump. “You should understand that your entire department leadership will resign. Every [assistant attorney general] will resign. ... Mr. President, these aren’t bureaucratic leftovers from another administration. You picked them. This is your leadership team. You sent every one of them to the Senate; you got them confirmed.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">What is that going to say about you, when we all walk out at the same time?</span>”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Donoghue then told Trump that Clark had no qualification to be attorney general: “He’s never been a criminal attorney. He’s never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. He’s never been in front of a grand jury, much less a trial jury.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Clark objected</b>.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Well, I’ve done a lot of very complicated appeals and civil litigation, environmental litigation, and things like that,” Clark said, according to Donoghue’s deposition.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“That’s right,” Donoghue said he responded. “You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office, and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.”</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, told Trump that Clark’s proposed letter was “a murder-suicide pact,”&nbsp;</b>according to Donoghue’s deposition. “It’s going to damage everyone who touches it. And we should have nothing to do with that letter. I don’t ever want to see that letter again.” Cipollone declined to comment.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump made his decision and turned to Clark.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“I appreciate your willingness to do it,”&nbsp;<b>Trump said, according to Donoghue. “I appreciate you being willing to suffer the abuse. But the reality is, you’re not going to get anything done. These guys are going to quit. Everyone else is going to resign. It’s going to be a disaster. The bureaucracy will eat you alive.&nbsp;</b>And no matter how much you want to get things done in the next few weeks, you won’t be able to get it done, and it’s not going to be worth the breakage.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Clark had yet another idea. He asked whether Engel could provide a formal opinion about what authority Vice President Mike Pence had “when it comes to opening the votes” of the electoral college</span>&nbsp;result on Jan. 6, according to an excerpt of Engel’s deposition in a recent court filing.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“That’s an absurd idea,” Engel said he responded, asserting it wasn’t the job of the Justice Department and noting only three days remained before Pence would perform his role. Trump interjected that he didn’t want anyone attending the meeting to talk to Pence about what to do on Jan. 6.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“Nobody should be talking to the vice president here,”</b>&nbsp;Trump said, according to Engel. Instead, Trump would soon do that himself in an attempt to convince the vice president not to certify Biden’s election.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As the Justice Department officials filed out of the White House that night, one grave threat to American democracy had passed.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Three days later, after the president falsely said at a rally that “we won this election, and we won it by a landslide,” a pro-Trump mob broke into the Capitol.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Alice Crites contributed to this report.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Jan. 6 insurrection</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection holds its third high-profile hearing this month. Find the latest here.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Congressional hearings: The House committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol has conducted more than 1,000 interviews over the last year. It will share it’s findings in a series of hearings starting June 9. Here’s what we know about the hearings and how to watch them.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The riot: On Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. Five people died on that day or in the immediate aftermath, and 140 police officers were assaulted.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Inside the siege: During the rampage, rioters came perilously close to penetrating the inner sanctums of the building while lawmakers were still there, including former vice president Mike Pence. The Washington Post examined text messages, photos and videos to create a video timeline of what happened on Jan. 6.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Charges: Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants have been charged with seditious conspiracy, joining Oathkeepers leader Stewart Rhodes and about two dozen associates in being indicted for their participation in the Capitol attack. They’re just some of the hundreds who were charged, many of which received punishments substantially lighter than what the government requested.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nola 818 why worry?</font></p><p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-6b02bdc2-7fff-28a8-ff14-b43eb7eb6675" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/climate-science" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">climate science</a>&nbsp;deniers and fossil fuel evangelists met Tuesday in<b> New Orleans for the Heartland Institute's second "America First" conference on U.S. energy</b>, they had every reason to celebrate the unprecedented influence they enjoy in the Trump administration.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Instead, they found plenty of reasons for dread.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25072018/republican-carbon-tax-bill-carlos-curbelo-congress-climate-change-regulation-highway-funding-gas-trade-offs" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">carbon tax proposals floating</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04042018/climate-change-fossil-fuel-company-lawsuits-timeline-exxon-children-california-cities-attorney-general" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">climate lawsuits advancing</a>, big corporations embracing the need for action and states and&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/27062018/coastal-cities-lawsuit-fossil-fuel-oil-climate-change-sea-level-rise-damage-imperial-beach-california" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent;">cities getting into the act</a>, many of those gathered grappled with the reality that a fossil future was not secure—despite a largely pliant White House and Congress.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Contrarian scientists, policy professionals and lawyers affiliated with conservative interests contemplated the spread of the climate action agenda as if it were a malignancy. While speakers at the live-streamed sessions&nbsp;universally praised President&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;and his regulatory rollbacks, the overwhelming diagnosis was that more aggressive policy surgery was needed.</font></p><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>High on their list of targets was the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that greenhouse gases are a danger to human health and welfare.</b>&nbsp;That determination, affirmed by the Supreme Court, is what empowers the agency to regulate global warming pollution.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the acting EPA administrator, Andrew Wheeler, has said he considers the endangerment finding "settled law" and does not wish to revisit it.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b style="">"Complete nonsense," said Atlanta lawyer Harry Macdougald,&nbsp;</b>who was part of the legal team that unsuccessfully challenged the endangerment finding in court during the Obama administration.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> "It is a direct threat to the president's energy dominance agenda. And the next Democratic administration—and there will be one—will turn the screws." [apocalyptic, like Nunes sectert fundraise recd 818]</span></font></p><h3 dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Corporations 'Jumping on Climate Change'</font></h3><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div></div></div></div></div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">jim baker called macd</span>: <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/01/10/84715/-J-accuse-Roger-amp-Nydia-Stone-Brought-Down-Rather-amp-CBS"> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/01/10/84715/-J-accuse-Roger-amp-Nydia-Stone-Brought-Down-Rather-amp-CBS</a> no name or citation</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">own bio</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Atlanta native Harry W. MacDougald was born in 1958. He is a 1980 graduate of Brown University and a 1985 cum laude graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law. For 12 years he was an associate and then partner at Johnson & Montgomery, and was partners there with Harmon W. Caldwell, Jr. and Wade H. Watson III. He was a sole practitioner from 1997 to 2002, and was Of Counsel at<b> Womble, Carlyle, Sandridge & Rice</b> from 2002 through May 2006, when he joined <b>Caldwell & Watson.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. MacDougald's practice is concentrated in fiduciary, estate, and commercial litigation</span>. He has handled multiple trials and has numerous reported appellate decisions in diverse practice areas. He is admitted to practice in all state and federal courts in Georgia, as well as the federal courts of appeal for the 6th and 9th Circuits, and the Supreme Court of the United States.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In his spare time Mr. MacDougald, posting as "Buckhead", was the first blogger to point out that CBS News was relying on forged documents in its September 8th, 2004 story on President George W. Bush's National Guard Service.</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mr. MacDougald is married to Liz Francis MacDougald, and they have two boys, Park and Quinn.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LAT</font></p>

<div id="mod-article-header" class="mod-latarticlesarticleheader mod-articleheader mod-articleheader-with-kicker">

<h1 class="multi-line-title-1"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">GOP Activist Made Allegations on CBS Memos</font></h1>

<h2 class="kicker full-nav"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE RACE TO THE WHITE HOUSE</font></h2>

</div>

<div id="mod-article-subtitle" class="mod-articlesubtitle">

<h2><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An Atlanta lawyer who helped get Clinton disbarred is the blogger who called them fakes.</font></h2>

</div>

<div id="mod-article-byline" class="mod-latarticlesarticlebyline mod-articlebyline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="pubdate">September 18, 2004</span><span class="separator">|</span><span>Peter Wallsten</span> | <span>Times Staff Writer</span></font></div>

<div id="mod-a-body-first-para" class="mod-latarticlesarticletext mod-articletext">

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON — It was the first public allegation that CBS News had used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's Air National Guard service -- a highly technical explanation posted on the Web within hours of airtime, citing proportional spacing and font styles.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history, as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who had helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal, the Los Angeles Times has learned.</font></p>

</div>

<div id="mod-a-body-after-first-para" class="mod-latarticlesarticletext mod-articletext">

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The identity of "Buckhead" -- a blogger previously known only by his screen name on the site freerepublic.com and since lifted to folk hero status in the conservative blogosphere -- is likely to fuel speculation among Democrats that the effort to discredit the memos was engineered by Republicans eager to undermine reports that Bush received preferential treatment in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican officials have denied any involvement among those attempting to debunk the CBS report.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reached by telephone Friday, MacDougald, 46, confirmed that he was Buckhead but declined to answer questions about his political background or how he learned so much about the CBS documents so quickly.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"You can ask the questions, <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">but I'm not going to answer them</span>," he said. "I'm just going to stick to doing no interviews."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Until The Times identified him by piecing together information from his postings over the last two years, MacDougald had taken pains to remain in the shadows -- saying the credit for challenging CBS should remain with the blogosphere as a whole and not one individual.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Freepers collectively possess more analytical horsepower than the entire news division at CBS," he wrote in an e-mail, using the slang term for users of the freerepublic.com site.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MacDougald is a lawyer in the Atlanta office of the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice and is affiliated with two prominent conservative legal groups: the <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Federalist Society and the <b>Southeastern Legal Foundation</b></span><b>, where he serves on the legal advisory board.</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The foundation, created in 1976, advocates "limited government, individual economic freedom and the free-enterprise system," according to its website.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The foundation has fought affirmative action and domestic-partner benefits for government employees, and successfully challenged a Clinton administration plan to use proportional sampling to estimate population in the 2000 census, rather than making a hard count.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MacDougald helped draft the foundation's petition in 1998 that led to the five-year suspension of Clinton's Arkansas law license for giving misleading testimony in the Paula Corbin Jones sexual harassment case.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And he assisted in the group's<b> <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">challenge to the campaign finance law sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russell D. Feingold</span> (D-Wis.)</b>. The challenge, which went to the U.S. Supreme Court, was funded largely by the <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">foundation with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the law's chief critic, and handled by former Clinton investigator Kenneth W. Starr.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The high court upheld the law, which banned unlimited contributions from corporations to federal candidates and political parties.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MacDougald is also a Republican appointee to the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last week he again plunged into a politically charged controversy -- but this time his participation was anonymous.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Operating as Buckhead, which is also the name of an upscale Atlanta neighborhood, he wrote that the memos CBS' "60 Minutes" presented Sept. 8 as being written in the early 1970s by the late Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian were "in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word-processing software and personal computers," MacDougald wrote on the website. "They were not widespread until the mid- to late '90s. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid '80s used monospaced fonts.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The late-night posting -- less than four hours after the CBS report aired -- resulted in a flurry of sympathetic testimonials from fellow bloggers, spreading within hours to other sites. The next day, newspapers such as The Times and the Washington Post began consulting forensic experts and reporting articles raising similar questions.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The network has insisted that the four memos, dated 1972 and 1973, had been authenticated by the network's experts and by "close associates" of Killian, who say "the documents reflect his opinions and actions at the time."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The memos showed Killian resisting pressure by a higher-up to "sugarcoat" Bush's performance evaluation and ordering Bush to undergo a physical so he could keep flying.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CBS has also cited an expert, Bill Glennon, an information technology consultant, who said IBM electric typewriters in use in 1972 could provide proportional spacing and the superscript -- the small "th" -- evident in the memos.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It also has sought to counter the arguments by referring to a typewriting script distributor, who says the typing style in the memos has been available since 1931. Moreover, CBS points out, some of the lettering in question was evident in Bush's military records previously released by the White House.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, after Killian's former secretary came forward this week to say she did not believe the memos were authentic, anchor Dan Rather and other network executives stopped asserting that they were. They said they would "redouble" efforts to resolve unanswered questions.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While bloggers and some conservative activists have hailed Buckhead as a hero in their longtime effort to paint the mainstream media as politically biased, some Democrats and even some conservative bloggers have marveled at Buckhead's detailed knowledge of the memos and wondered whether that suggested White House involvement.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe speculated openly to reporters that the whole thing could have been orchestrated by White House political advisor Karl Rove. The Bush campaign called the allegation "nonsense."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The White House had access to the memos before the broadcast. CBS delivered copies to White House communications director Dan Bartlett on the morning of Sept. 8 so he could discuss them in an interview with Rather. Whether MacDougald had help reviewing the memos remains unknown.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lawyer is an outspoken conservative and a Republican active in local politics.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I attended a meeting on Tuesday to <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">organize lawyers for Bush-Cheney in my state to monitor and if necessary litigate election issues</span>," he said in a Buckhead posting last month.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Professionally, MacDougald has represented government waste whistle-blowers and <b>challenged affirmative action laws</b> that give racial and ethnic minorities preferences in higher education.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He is not a major contributor to political causes, having donated $250 to the Georgia Republican Party in 2002, when Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, was chairman. Reed is now a senior strategist for the Bush campaign.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Associates of MacDougald scoff at the notion that he was doing anything but acting alone when he offered his observations about the CBS memos.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Harry is a very strong conservative and a very passionate conservative.... So if he sees something that looks fishy, he's going to say something about it," said Lynn Hogue, a Georgia State University law professor and former executive director of the Southeastern Legal Foundation.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"When he's not absorbed with work, I think he spends the rest of his life in the wee hours of the morning on freerepublic," Hogue said. "And that's the outlet through which he shares his concerns and insights, and so rather than being a matter of conspiracy, it's just him doing what he does."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://articles.latimes.com/print/2004/sep/18/nation/na-buckhead18</font></p>

</div>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">WASHINGTON — It was the first public allegation that CBS News used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's National Guard service — a highly technical explanation posted within hours of airtime citing proportional spacing and font styles.

But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Times has found.

The identity of "Buckhead," a blogger known previously only by his screen name on the site freerepublic.com and lifted to folk hero status in the conservative blogosphere since last week's posting, is likely to fuel speculation among Democrats that the efforts to discredit the CBS memos were engineered by Republicans eager to undermine reports that Bush received preferential treatment in the National Guard more than 30 years ago.

Republican officials have denied any involvement among those debunking the CBS story.

<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-091704buck">http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-091704buck</a><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-091704buckhead_lat,1,494535.story?coll=la-home-headlines" target="_blank">...</a></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">-----</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a call to General Rose did not work." Barnes' disclaimer was not included in the Segment.<sup id="cite_ref-53" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-53"><span>[</span>54<span>]</span></a></sup></font></p>

<h3><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="editsection">[</span>&nbsp;<span class="mw-headline" id="Internet_skepticism_spreads">Internet skepticism spreads</span></font></h3>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Within hours of the segment, the authenticity of the documents was questioned by posters on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Republic" title="Free Republic">Free Republic</a>, a conservative Internet forum, and discussion quickly spread to various <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog" title="Blog">weblogs</a> in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogosphere" title="Blogosphere">blogosphere</a>, principally <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Green_Footballs" title="Little Green Footballs">Little Green Footballs</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Line" title="Power Line">Power Line</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-HK2004.0919_54-0" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-HK2004.0919-54"><span>[</span>55<span>]</span></a></sup> The initial analysis appeared in posts by "Buckhead," a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Username" title="Username" class="mw-redirect">username</a> of Harry W. MacDougald, an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta" title="Atlanta">Atlanta</a> attorney who had worked for conservative groups such as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society" title="Federalist Society">Federalist Society</a> and the Southeastern Legal Foundation </span>and who had helped draft the petition to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas" title="Arkansas">Arkansas</a> Supreme Court for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disbarment" title="Disbarment">disbarment</a> of President <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton" title="Bill Clinton">Bill Clinton</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-55" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-55"><span>[</span>56<span>]</span></a></sup> MacDougald questioned the validity of the documents on the basis of their typography, writing that the memos were "in a proportionally spaced font, probably <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatino" title="Palatino">Palatino</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_New_Roman" title="Times New Roman">Times New Roman</a>," and alleging that this was an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anachronism" title="Anachronism">anachronism</a>: "I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively."<sup id="cite_ref-56" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-56"><span>[</span>57<span>]</span></a></sup></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By the following day, questions about the authenticity of the documents were being publicized by the <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drudge_Report" title="Drudge Report">Drudge Report</a></i></span>, which linked to the analysis at the Powerline blog in the mid-afternoon,<sup id="cite_ref-57" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-57"><span>[</span>58<span>]</span></a></sup> and the story was covered on the website of the magazine <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weekly_Standard" title="The Weekly Standard">The Weekly Standard</a></i><sup id="cite_ref-58" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-58"><span>[</span>59<span>]</span></a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-59" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-59"><span>[</span>60<span>]</span></a></sup> and broke into mass media outlets, including the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Associated_Press" title="Associated Press">Associated Press</a> and the major television news networks. It also was receiving serious attention from conservative writers such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Review_Online" title="National Review Online" class="mw-redirect">National Review Online</a>'s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Geraghty" title="Jim Geraghty">Jim Geraghty</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-60" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-60"><span>[</span>61<span>]</span></a></sup> By the afternoon of September 9, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Foster_Johnson" title="Charles Foster Johnson">Charles Foster Johnson</a> of Little Green Footballs had posted his attempt to recreate one of the documents using <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Word" title="Microsoft Word">Microsoft Word</a> with the default settings.<sup id="cite_ref-61" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-61"><span>[</span>62<span>]</span></a></sup> The September 9 edition of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Broadcasting_Company" title="American Broadcasting Company">ABC</a>'s <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightline_%28US_news_program%29" title="Nightline (US news program)" class="mw-redirect">Nightline</a></i> made mention of the controversy, along with an article on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_News" title="ABC News">ABC News</a> website.<sup id="cite_ref-62" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-62"><span>[</span>63<span>]</span></a></sup> Although the CBS story is front-page news in the <i>New York Times</i> and <i>Washington Post</i> on September 9, and on two-thirds of a full page within <i>USA Today'</i>s news section (which notes the newspaper has also obtained copies of the documents), "There is no discussion in the major news media about whether the memos are authentic."<sup id="cite_ref-memmot_11-1" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-memmot-11"><span>[</span>12<span>]</span></a></sup> CBS published the reaction of Killian's son, Gary, to the documents, reporting that Gary Killian questioned one of the memos but stated that others "appeared legitimate" and characterized the collection as "a mixture of truth and fiction".<sup id="cite_ref-63" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-63"><span>[</span>64<span>]</span></a></sup> In an interview with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News" title="Fox News" class="mw-redirect">Fox News</a>, Gary Killian expressed doubts about the documents' authenticity on the basis of his father's positive view of Bush.<sup id="cite_ref-64" class="reference"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy#cite_note-64"><span>[</span>65<span>]</span></a></sup></font>

<sup id="cite_ref-64" class="reference"><span><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></span></sup></p>

<table class="post-message" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="1%"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img alt="" src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile0.gif" border="0" height="48" width="48" /></font></td><td width="99%">

<div class="medtext longop"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Duckworth v. Whisenant, et. al., U.S.D.C. N.D. Ga., Obtained defense verdicts for three officers in 8 day bench trial of excessive force claims, limited verdict against DeKalb County to $500.

Alford v. Osei-Kwasi, 203 Ga.App. 716, 418 S.E.2d 79 (1992). Successfully defended jail officer who used a taser on a six month pregnant inmate.

<b>Work for Southeastern Legal Foundation</b>

Drafted petition to d<b>isbar William Jefferson Clinton </b>filed by L. Lynn Hogue.

Drafted amicus briefs in the 11th Circuit for SLF in Johnson v. UGA, regarding constitutionality of affirmative action in college admissions, Gratz v. Bollinger a 6th Circuit affirmative action in law school admissions case, <b>Washington Post Co. v. FreeRepublic.com, a First Amendment and copyright fair use case</b>, and Utah v. North Carolina, a Supreme Court case involving the propriety of certain statistical methods in the apportionment count of the 2000 census. Actively involved on the plaintiffs’ side in McConnell, et al., v. FEC, et al., in the District of Columbia, an omnibus challenge to the constitutionality of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

Oh...and never been laid. Not even once.

</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p>

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Response to <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x835262#835310">Reply #9</a></font></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="post-subject" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">27.&nbsp;Southeastern Legal Foundation is Scaife-funded</font></b></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="post-message" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="1%"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img alt="" src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile7.gif" border="0" height="48" width="48" /></font></td><td width="99%">

<div class="medtext longop"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">See <a href="http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2000/disbar.html" target="_blank">http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2000/disbar.html</a>

Any time Scaife's name comes up, you know you've got trouble.

MacDougald is also linked to Ken Starr -- both through the Southeastern Legal Foundation and by their having worked together on a challenge to the Campaign Finance Reform Act.

In othe words, MacDougald is part of the same old Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy -- the one that tried to bring down Bill Clinton, was involved in smearing John McCain in 2000, and is now organizing the SwiftBoat Liars.</font></div>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p>

<table class="post-top" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="smalltext" nowrap="nowrap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a id="836472" name="836472"> </a><span class="medtext"><b>UpInArms</b></span> <img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile8.gif" alt="Donating Member" border="0" height="11" width="11" /> (1000+ posts) &nbsp;<a href="http://journals.democraticunderground.com/UpInArms"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile9.gif" alt="Journal" title="Journal" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=send_mesg&u_id=102294"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile10.gif" alt="Click to send private message to this author" title="Click to send private message to this author" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=102294"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile11.gif" alt="Click to view this author's profile" title="Click to view this author's profile" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=add_buddy&u_id=102294"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile12.gif" alt="Click to add this author to your buddy list" title="Click to add this author to your buddy list" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=ignore_member&iid=102294&level=three"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile13.gif" alt="Click to add this author to your Ignore list" title="Click to add this author to your Ignore list" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a></font></td><td class="smalltext" align="right" nowrap="nowrap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sat Sep-18-04 08:06 AM

Response to <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x835262#836042">Reply #27</a></font></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="post-subject" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">36.&nbsp;and per his bio</font></b></td></tr></tbody></table>

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<div class="medtext longop"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><i>Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy, 1985-present</i>

They have been indoctrinating and creating an entire cadre of right-wing attorneys in the mold of Renquist et al for years

<a href="http://www.fed-soc.org" target="_blank">http://www.fed-soc.org</a> /

<a href="http://www.fed-soc.org/ourpurpose.htm" target="_blank">http://www.fed-soc.org/ourpurpose.htm</a>

Law schools and the legal profession are currently strongly dominated by a form of orthodox liberal ideology which advocates a centralized and uniform society. While some members of the academic community have dissented from these views, by and large they are taught simultaneously with (and indeed as if they were) the law.

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order. It is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.

The Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities. This entails reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law. It also requires restoring the recognition of the importance of these norms among lawyers, judges, and law professors.

In working to achieve these goals, the Society has created a conservative and libertarian intellectual network that extends to all levels of the legal community.</font></div>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p>

<table class="post-top" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="smalltext" nowrap="nowrap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a id="836826" name="836826"> </a><span class="medtext"><b>Sophree</b></span> <img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile14.gif" alt="Donating Member" border="0" height="11" width="11" /> (1000+ posts) <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=send_mesg&u_id=113546"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile15.gif" alt="Click to send private message to this author" title="Click to send private message to this author" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=113546"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile16.gif" alt="Click to view this author's profile" title="Click to view this author's profile" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=add_buddy&u_id=113546"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile17.gif" alt="Click to add this author to your buddy list" title="Click to add this author to your buddy list" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=ignore_member&iid=113546&level=three"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile18.gif" alt="Click to add this author to your Ignore list" title="Click to add this author to your Ignore list" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a></font></td><td class="smalltext" align="right" nowrap="nowrap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sat Sep-18-04 11:26 AM

Response to <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x835262#836042">Reply #27</a></font></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="post-subject" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">47.&nbsp;"Ends justify the means"</font></b></td></tr></tbody></table>

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<div class="medtext longop"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scaife and the VRWC are "Ends justify the means" people.

I would not put ANYTHING past them and it's not surprising that MacDougald/Buckhead is a part of it.</font></div>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p>

<table class="post-top" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="smalltext" nowrap="nowrap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a id="835316" name="835316"> </a><span class="medtext"><b>bobbyboucher</b></span> <img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile20.gif" alt="Donating Member" border="0" height="11" width="11" /> (1000+ posts) <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=send_mesg&u_id=134347"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile21.gif" alt="Click to send private message to this author" title="Click to send private message to this author" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=134347"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile22.gif" alt="Click to view this author's profile" title="Click to view this author's profile" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=add_buddy&u_id=134347"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile23.gif" alt="Click to add this author to your buddy list" title="Click to add this author to your buddy list" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=ignore_member&iid=134347&level=three"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile24.gif" alt="Click to add this author to your Ignore list" title="Click to add this author to your Ignore list" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a></font></td><td class="smalltext" align="right" nowrap="nowrap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fri Sep-17-04 06:06 PM

Response to <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x835262#835262">Original message</a></font></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="post-subject" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10.&nbsp;Check this:</font></b></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="post-message" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="1%"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img alt="" src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile25.gif" border="0" height="1" width="48" /></font></td><td width="99%">

<div class="medtext longop"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alford v. Osei-Kwasi, 203 Ga.App. 716, 418 S.E.2d 79 (1992). <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Successfully defended jail officer who used a taser on a six month pregnant inmate.</span>

</font></div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

&nbsp;</font></td></tr></tbody></table>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p>

<table class="post-message" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="99%">

<div class="medtext longop"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Edited to note that Harry W. McDougald (Buckhead on FR), who is an attorney in Atlanta, was the "blogger" who "discovered" that the CBS memos were "forgeries." Within hours of the 60 Minutes II broadcast Buckhead put long, detailed posts on Free Republic discussing font sizes, etc. Those "guesses" got picked up by right-wing news agencies instantly, all over the country and became conventional wisdom, even though they were WRONG. The memos are probably not legit, but not for the reasons that McDougald gave.

McDougald was also present during the 2000 riots in Palm Beach, as were several other Atlanta-based attorneys.

The web is probably sphere-shaped. It's a three-dimensional universe proving Hillary Clinton's contention that there is a vast right-wing conspiracy. Their goals are simple - money and power.</font></div>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p>

<table class="post-top" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="smalltext" nowrap="nowrap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a id="1155791" name="1155791"> </a><span class="medtext"><b>starroute</b></span> <img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile26.gif" alt="Donating Member" border="0" height="11" width="11" /> (1000+ posts) &nbsp;<a href="http://journals.democraticunderground.com/starroute"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile27.gif" alt="Journal" title="Journal" border="0" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=send_mesg&u_id=100102"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile28.gif" alt="Click to send private message to this author" title="Click to send private message to this author" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=100102"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile29.gif" alt="Click to view this author's profile" title="Click to view this author's profile" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=add_buddy&u_id=100102"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile30.gif" alt="Click to add this author to your buddy list" title="Click to add this author to your buddy list" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a> <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=ignore_member&iid=100102&level=three"><img src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile31.gif" alt="Click to add this author to your Ignore list" title="Click to add this author to your Ignore list" border="0" height="16" width="20" /></a></font></td><td class="smalltext" align="right" nowrap="nowrap"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sun Oct-24-04 02:41 PM

Response to <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1154535#1155608">Reply #15</a></font></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="post-subject" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">18.&nbsp;L. Brent Bozell was also part of the Buckhead story</font></b></td></tr></tbody></table>

<table class="post-message" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="1%"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><img alt="" src="file:///C:/data/BURKE/CONTENT/JBBRAINS/BRAINS1/webodec3_brain/Files/DFCC380C-60AF-8579-82F6-25FDA6405A98/PersonalBrain Notes/downloadedimagefile32.gif" border="0" height="48" width="48" /></font></td><td width="99%">

<div class="medtext longop"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bozell (another CNP member) played an active role in disseminating Buckhead's claims to the point where Drudge picked them up. He was also a close friend of Terry Dolan.

As far as I know, Bozell isn't tightly connected to any of the people at the heart of the dirty tricks/direct mail network, but it would certainly be worth trying to find out.</font></div>

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<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">February 29th, 2012 by Zandar</font></p>

<div class="entry">

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Red states and industrial lobbyists are getting their<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> trial against the EPA underway</span>, and their attack on the government is of course <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/29/us-usa-epa-court-idUSTRE81S01U20120229">THE SCIENCE ISN’T SETTLED</a>!

&nbsp;</font></p>

<blockquote><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heavy industry groups and states argued in a federal court on Tuesday that U.S. environmental regulators had used faulty science in determining that greenhouse gas emissions endangered human health in the latest attempt to dismantle the Obama administration’s rules on the emissions.

</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the first of two days of arguments on a case that seeks to overturn Environmental Protection Agency regulations, Harry MacDougald, a lawyer for the petitioners, said uncertain evidence was used to reach “90 percent” certainty that human emissions are responsible for harmful climate change.</font></p>

</blockquote><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">

Too bad the judges aren’t buying it.

</font><blockquote><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The three judges hearing the case appeared to resist deciding on whether the EPA’s science was sufficient, with U.S. Circuit Judge David Tatel pointing out the agency had found the science certain enough.

</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“To win here, you have to make an argument that EPA’s decision is actually arbitrary and capricious,” Tatel said.</font></p>

</blockquote>

</div>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[went for recall of Fla judges?</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">from swiftvets

According to the newspaper, MacDougald works in the Atlanta office of the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice and is connected to the conservative Federalist Society and Southeastern Legal Foundation, where he serves on its legal advisory board.

In 1998, he helped draft the foundation's petition that led to the five-year suspension of Mr. Clinton's Arkansas law license. He also assisted in the group's legal challenge to a federal campaign finance law funded in conjunction with a Republican senator and handled by former Clinton investigator Kenneth W. Starr.

As an attorney, MacDougald has represented government waste whistle-blowers and has challenged affirmative action laws that give racial and ethnic minorities preferences in higher education. He has not been a big financial contributor to political causes, the Times reported.

MacDougald's associates believe he acted alone when he wrote his criticism of the documents.

"Harry is a very strong conservative and a very passionate conservative so if he sees something that looks fishy, he's going to say something about it," said <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Lynn Hogue, former executive director of the Southeastern Legal </span>Foundation.

Meanwhile, a retired Texas National Guard official mentioned as a possible source of the disputed documents said he passed along information to a former senator working with John Kerry's campaign.

In an Aug. 21 e-mail to a list of Texas Democrats, Bill Burkett said that after getting through "seven layers of bureaucratic kids" in the Democrat's campaign, he talked with former Georgia Senator Max Cleland about information that would counter criticism of Kerry's Vietnam War service. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the e-mail Saturday.

"I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. (Cleland) said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with," Burkett wrote.

Burkett, who lives just outside of Abilene, wrote that no one at the Kerry campaign called him back.

The e-mail was distributed to a Yahoo list of Texas Democrats. The site, which had about 570 members Saturday, is not affiliated with the state party.

Kerry campaign officials did not immediately comment to The Associated Press on Saturday about whether Cleland or the campaign received any communications from Burkett.

Republican National Committee spokesman Jim Dyke suggested collaboration between Burkett and the Kerry campaign. "The trail of connections is becoming increasingly clear," he said.

Burkett, who identifies himself as a Democrat, did not return several phone messages left by The Associated Press over the past week. There was no answer at his telephone number Saturday.

Burkett's lawyer, David Van Os, a Democratic candidate for the Texas Supreme Court, issued a statement this week saying Burkett "no longer trusts any possible outcome of speaking to the press on any issue regarding George W. Bush."

Burkett, who retired from the National Guard in 1999, has been cited in media reports as a source for the CBS News story.

Also Saturday, a White House official said Mr. Bush has reviewed the disputed documents that purport to show he refused orders to take a physical examination in 1972, and did not recall having seen them previously.

In his first public comment on the CBS News documents controversy, the president told The Union Leader of Manchester, N.H., "There are a lot of questions about the documents, and they need to be answered."

In the telephone interview published Saturday, Mr. Bush replied "I don't know" when asked whether the White House had evidence that either the Kerry campaign or the Democratic Party was involved in releasing the disputed papers.

A White House spokesman said Saturday that <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Mr. Bush himself looked at the papers </span>when CBS News first said it had obtained them early this month.

The president's communications director, Dan Bartlett, "showed the president the documents provided by CBS (News) that allegedly came from Col. Killian's personal files," said spokesman Brian Besanceney. "The president had no recollection of ever seeing the documents previously."

&nbsp; </font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Coalition for responsible regulation; whole bunch of lawyers, vinson, cei. mcguire... crowell, landmark, hunton, NAM, sidley, baker bots, ...

&nbsp;</font></p>

<div class="subtop"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Government Filings</font></div>

<div class="headline"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Arguments preview fight on EPA greenhouse gas rules</font></div>

<div class="sm"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tue, Feb 28&nbsp;</font></div>

<p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* EPA used uncertain science in emissions finding-opponents</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Arguments on "tailoring" rule due Wednesday</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Emily Stephenson</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Feb 28 (Reuters) -<b> Heavy industry groups and states argued in a federal court on Tuesday that U.S. environmental regulators had used faulty science in determining that greenhouse gas emissions endangered human health in the latest attempt to dismantle the Obama administration's rules on the emissions.</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">During the first of two days of arguments on a case that seeks to overturn Environmental Protection Agency regulations, Harry MacDougald, a lawyer for the petitioners, said uncertain evidence was used to reach "90 percent" certainty that human emissions are responsible for harmful climate change.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">The three judges hearing the case appeared to resist deciding on whether the EPA's science was sufficient, with U.S. Circuit Judge David Tatel pointing out the agency had found the science certain enough.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">"To win here, you have to make an argument that EPA's decision is actually arbitrary and capricious," Tatel said.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The coalition of power plants, business groups and 37 states also said a rule limiting carbon emissions from vehicles led to improper rules for power plants and other stationary sources.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The case stems from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that greenhouse gases should be regulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act if the EPA determined them to be harmful to public health.</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The agency found in 2009 that greenhouse gas emissions endangered the public. Environmental groups support the regulations since Congress failed to pass legislation to cap emissions.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Auto manufacturers, who already faced emissions standards in a handful of states including California, also support the national standards written by the EPA.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA has said it relied on a variety of scientific reports to make the endangerment finding, including studies from a range of U.S. agencies.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>COALITION: EPA OVERSTEPPED ITS POWER</b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tuesday's arguments largely previewed the case the coalition will make on Wednesday that the EPA overstepped its power by applying the Clean Air Act only to the largest stationary sources of greenhouse gases such as power plants and big manufacturers, in a so-called "tailoring" rule.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The core concern of these plaintiffs is about stationary sources and the tailoring rule," said Howard Fox, an attorney with Earthjustice, which supports the EPA's rules.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Analysts expect the big showdown to come on Wednesday, when the court will hear arguments on the tailoring rule. The rule was adopted so that small stationary polluters, such as schools, did not have to obtain permits for greenhouse gas emissions.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was also aimed at reducing burdens on state and local government permitting agencies.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Critics argue that exempting some facilities from the rules represents a regulatory attempt to rewrite the Clean Air Act, which would have applied the emissions rules to those polluters.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Petitioners argued on Tuesday that the EPA should have anticipated the tailoring rule during the endangerment phase and taken into consideration the regulatory headache it would face when it had to apply emissions standards to non-vehicle sources.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The petitioners also argued that the tailpipe rule should have been delayed or rewritten to avoid having to tailor the rules for stationary polluters.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Glaser, who argued on behalf of the petitioners, said the EPA ignored comments about stationary pollution sources while it was drafting the tailpipe rule, but said it was too late when petitioners tried to comment on the later rules.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The analysis at the tailoring rule stage was limited by the fact that they had not considered this in the motor vehicle rule," he said during oral arguments.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA lawyers countered that the rulemaking process is established by law and that they were right not to look at stationary sources of pollution while writing the vehicle rules.</font></p>