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Transcripts for MSNBC Dateline 20240604 07:48:00

the one who was rumored to be having sex with him sister in law. >> definitely, he made some bad decisions. we've all done that. but that has not made him a murderer. >> but investigators were talking evidence, and timeline. just look, they'd tell you. in what craig was doing on the day he was arrested. it was may of 2009. the last day of school before summer vacation in effingham county. when police pulled him over to arrest. he was driving his dead brother's white truck. he had his brother's children's i. d. cards in his wallet. the truck was full of craig's belongings. and when school got out, craig and his brother's wife and kids were all going to move to south carolina. to the cops, this was more than just a fling. this was coveting. biblical stuff. jealousy. anger. lust. and greed. >> he had just stepped right into his brother's life? >> exactly. >> took the wife, the house, the truck, the kids. >> the money. he had become his brother. >> coming up! a son and brother on trial.

Transcripts for MSNBC Dateline 20240604 07:48:00

decisions. we've all done that. but that has not made him a murderer. >> but investigators were talking evidence, and timeline. just look, they tell you. in what craig was doing on the day he was arrested. it was may of 2009. the last day of school before summer vacation in effing tint county. when police pulled him over to arrest. he was driving his dead brother's white truck. he had his brother's children's i.d. cards in his wallet. the truck was full of craig's belongings. and when school got out, craig and his brother's wife and kids were all going to move to south carolina. to the cops, this was more than just a flaying. this was coveting. biblical stuff. jealousy. anger. last. and greed. >> he had just stepped right into his brother's life? >> exactly. >> took the wife, the house, the truck, the kids. >> the money. he had become his brother. >> coming up! a son and brother on trial.

Transcripts for MSNBC The January 6th Hearings The House Investigates 20240604 22:13:00

did. at the close of today's hearing, we will see video testimony by three members of donald trump's white house staff. they will identify certain of the members of congress who contacted the white house after january 6th to seek presidential pardons for their conduct. thank you, mister chairman. i yield back. >> without objection, the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. kinzinger, for an opening statement. >> thank, you thank you mister, chairman and thank you to our witnesses for being here. i would like to start with a personal story. so in may of 2009, i returned from service in iraq and i announced my intention to run for congress. the bigger reason i decided to run for congress was my motivation to ensure freedom and democracy were defended overseas. i remember making a commitment out loud a few times, and in my heart repeatedly, even until today, that if we are going to

Transcripts for FOXNEWS January 6th Hearings 20240604 19:14:00

>> i want to thank our witnesses for us today, for your role in addressing the allegations of fraud at the root of january 6. thank you for standing up for the constitution and for the rule of law. of course, not all public officials behaved in the honorable way or witnesses did. at the close of today's hearing, we will see video testimony of three of donald trump's white house staff. they will identify certain of the members of congress that contacted the white house after january 6 to seek presidential pardons for their conduct. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> mr. kinzinger is recognized for an opening statement. >> thank you for being here. i'd like to start with a personal story. in may of 2009, i announced my

Transcripts for CNN Attack on Democracy The January 6th Hearings 20240604 19:14:00

witnesses before us for your role in addressing and rebutting false allegations of fraud at the root of gentry six. thank you for standing up for the constitution and the rule of law. not all public officials behaved in the honorable way are witnesses did. at the close of today's hearing, we'll see video testimony by three members of donald trump's white house staff. they will identify certain other members of congress who contacted the white house after january 6 to seek presidential pardons for their conduct. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. why without objection, the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. kinzinger, for an opening statement. >> i would like to start with a personal story. in may of 2009, returned from service in iraq and i announce

Transcripts for MSNBC The January 6th Hearings The House Investigates 20240604 19:14:00

rebutting the false allegations of fraud at the root of january 6th, and thank you for standing up for the constitution and for the rule of law. of course, not all public officials behaved in the honorable way our witnesses did. at the close of today's hearing, we will see video testimony by three members of donald trump's white house staff. they will identify certain of the members of congress who contacted the white house after january 6th to seek presidential pardons for their conduct. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> without objection, the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. kinzinger, for an opening statement. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman, thank you to our witnesses for being here. i'd like to start with a personal story, so in may of 2009, i returned from service in iraq and i announced my intention to run for congress. a big reason i decided to run

Transcripts For FOXNEWSW January 6th Hearings 20220623

0 and don't forget, tomorrow more opinions coming from the supreme court. will dobbs be among them, will it be held until next week and what will the fallout be when we learn what the supreme court will do. >> sandra: and we'll be watching all of it. thank you for joining us here. i'm sandra smith. >> john: i'm john roberts. martha maccallum is up next with special coverage >> martha: that is correct. good afternoon, everybody. i'm martha maccallum at fox news head quarters in new york. welcome to special coverage where moments away from the start of the fifth public hearing in the past two weeks. today's testimony is expected to focus on the former president's alleged pressure campaign on the justice department. that's what they're going to be testifying too during the 2020 election. testifying today, you see them sitting down at a table right now, getting ready. lots of cameras. you have jeffery rosen, the former attorney general that left the justice department after bill barr resigned in december of 2020. we expect to hear from former acting deputy attorney general richard donahue and stephen angle, the former assistant attorney general nor the legal counsel. we learned a short time ago that federal authorities searched the home of doj official jeffery clark. a name that you're probably going to hear quite a few times throughout the course of the day as we believe we're about to get underway. there's bennie thompson. the chairman of this committee. we expect they've been punctual in terms of getting underway. there's liz cheney. we see adam kinzinger who will be doing the questioning today. this will be a moment for him in the spot light. he has been obviously controversial within his party for taking this role as has liz cheney. they are the two republicans that sit on this committee, although they are like-minded in terms of their perspective on the outlook here. we've heard a lot of folks say it would be good to have some people that have the opposing viewpoint or at least willing to sort of cross examine some of these witnesses to a greater extent that we've seen throughout this process. it is what it is as we start to gavel in here on this fifth session of the january 6th hearings. we've been told because of new evidence that has come in, these are going to keep going. take a two-week break and then go on indefinitely at this point as we head to the mid-terms in november. here's the chairman, bennie thompson. >> without objection, the chair is authorized to declare the committee in recess at any point. pursuant to house deposition authority regulation 10, the chair is releasing the deposition material presented during today's hearing. good afternoon. in our previous hearings, the select committee showed that then president trump applied pressure at every level of government. from local election workers up to his own vice president. hoping public servants would give in to that pressure and help him steal an election he actually lost. today we'll tell the story of how the pressure campaign also targeted the federal agency charged with enforcement of our laws. the department of justice. we're already covered part of mr. trump's effort. we heard from attorney general bill bar, tell the story and the committee about the base less claims mr. trip wanted the justice department to investigate and that mr. barr viewed those claims as nonsense. today we'll hear from jeffery rosen, the person mr. trump appointed to run the justice department after attorney general barr resigned. we'll hear from other senior justice department officials also. together these public servants resisted mr. trump's effort to misuse the justice department as part of his plan to hold on to power. we will show that trump's demands that the department investigate baseless claims of election fraud continued into january 2021. donald trump didn't just want the justice department to investigate. he wanted the justice department to help legitimize his lies. to basically call the election corrupt. to appoint a special counsel for election fraud, to send a letter to six state legislatures urging them to consider altering the election results. when these and other efforts fail, donald trump sought to replace mr. rosen the acting attorney general with a lawyer who he believed would inappropriately put the few weight of the justice department behind the effort to overturn the election. let's think about what that means. wherever you live in the united states as probably a local government executive, a mayor or a county commissioner. there's also an official responsible for enforcing the laws, a district attorney or local prosecutor. imagine if your mayor lost a re-election bid but instead of conceding the race, they picked up the phone, called a district attorney and said, i want you to say this election was stolen. i want you to tell the board of elections not to certify the results. that's essentially what donald trump was trying to do with the election nor president of the united states. it was a brazen attempt to use the justice department to advance the president's personal political agenda. today my colleague from illinois, mr. kinzinger and other witnesses will walk through the select committee's findings on these matters. but first, i recognize our distinguished vice chair, mrs. cheney of wyoming for any opening statement she's cared to offer. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. at this point, our committee has just begun to show america the evidence that we have gathered. there's much more to come. both in our hearings and in our report. but i'd like to take just a moment to put everything we've seen in context. we have already seen how president trump falsely declared victory on november 3, 2020. how he and his team launched a fraudulent media campaign that persuaded tens of millions of americans that the election was stolen from him. donald trump intentionally ran false ads on television and social media featuring allegations of his advisers and justice department repeatedly told him were untrue. we have also seen how donald trump launched a fraud lend fund-raising campaign that raised hundreds of millions of dollars, again, based on the same election fraud allegations. we've seen how president trump and his allies corruptly attempted the pressure of vice president pence to renews to couldn't lawful electoral votes and obstruct congress's proceedings on january 6 and how he provoked a violent mob to pursue the vice president and others in our capitol. we've seen how the president oversaw and personally participated in an effort in multiple states to vilify, threaten and pressure election officials and to use false allegations to pressure state legislators to change the outcome of the election. we've seen how president trump worked with and directed the republican national committee and others to organize an effort to create fake electoral slates and later to transmit those materially false documents to federal officials, again, as part of his planning for january 6. we have seen how president trump persuaded tens of thousands of his supporters to travel to washington d.c. for january 6 and we will see in far more detail how the president's rally and march to the capitol were organized and choreographed. as you can tell, these efforts were not some minor or ad hoc enterprise concocted overnight. each required planning and coordination. some required significant funding. all of them were overseen by president trump. much more information will be presented soon regarding the president's statements and actions on january 6. today as chairman thompson indicated, we turn to yet another element of the president's effort to overturn the 2020 election. this one involving the department of justice. a key focus of our hearing today will be a draft letter that our witnesses here today refused to sign. this letter was written by mr. jeff clark with another department of justice lawyer. the letter was to be sent to the leadership of the georgia state legislature. other versions of the letter were intended for other states. neither mr. clark, nor mr. klukowski had any widespread evidence of election frayed. they were aware of what mr. trump wanted the department to do. jeff clark met privately with president trump and others in the white house and agreed to assist the president without telling the senior leadership of the department that oversaw him. as you'll see, this letter claims that the u.s. department of justices investigations have identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states including state of georgia. in fact, donald trump knew this was a lie. the department of justice had already informed the president of the united states repeatedly that this investigation had found no fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the 2020 election. the letters will said this: "in light of these developments, we should convene a special session and it indicates a separate quote supporting donald trump is already been transmitted to washington d.c. for those of you watching these hearings, the language of this draft, justice department letter will sound very familiar. when one of our witnesses today, mr. donahue, first saw this draft letter, he wrote this. "this would be a grave step for the department to take and it could have tremendous constitutional, political and social ramifications for the country." this committee agrees. had this letter been released, it would have falsely informed all americans including those that might be inclined to come to washington january 6 that president trump's election fraud allegations were likely real. here's another observation about this letter. look at the signature line. it was written by jeff clark and mr. klukowski. not just for clark's signature but for jeff rosen and richard donahue. when it was clear that he wouldn't sign the letter, the president's plan changed. as you'll hear today, donald trump offered mr. clark the job of acting attorney general replacing mr. rosen with the understanding that clark would send this letter to georgia and other states and take other actions the president requested. one other point. millions of americans have seen the testimony of attorney general bar before this committee. at one point in his deposition, the former attorney general was asked why he authorized the department of justice to investigate fraud at all. why not just follow the regular course of action and let the investigations occur much later in time after january 6. here's what he said. >> i felt the responsible position was to look at if there was fraud. the fact that i put myself in the position that i could say that we had looked at this and didn't think that there was fraud was really important to moving things forward. i sort of shutter to think what the situation would have been if the the position of the department was we're not even look at this in until biden is in office. i'm not sure if we would have had a transition at all. >> i want to thank our witnesses for us today, for your role in addressing the allegations of fraud at the root of january 6. thank you for standing up for the constitution and for the rule of law. of course, not all public officials behaved in the honorable way or witnesses did. at the close of today's hearing, we will see video testimony of three of donald trump's white house staff. they will identify certain of the members of congress that contacted the white house after january 6 to seek presidential pardons for their conduct. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> mr. kinzinger is recognized for an opening statement. >> thank you for being here. i'd like to start with a personal story. in may of 2009, i announced my intention to run for congress. the big reason is to ensure freedom and democracy were defended overseas. i remember making a commitment out loud a few times and my heart repeatedly till today that if we're going to ask americans to be willing to die in service to our country, we as leaders must at least be willing to sacrifice our political careers when integrity and our oath requires it. after all, losing a job is nothing compared to losing your life. within the halls of power in the face of a president, that commitment can easily be forgotten. presidential pressure can be really hard to resist. today we'll focus on a few officials that stood firm against president trump's political pressure campaign. when the president tried to misuse the department and install a loyalist at its hem, these brave officials refused and threatened to resign. they were willing to sacrifice their careers for the good of our country. the department of justice is unique in the executive branch. the president oversees the department of justice but the president's personal partisan interests must not shop or dictate the department's actions. the president cannot and must not use the department to serve his own personal interests. he must not use its people to do his political bidding, especially when what he wants them to do is subvert democracy. the president cannot pervert justice, nor the law to maintain his power. justice must in fact in law be blind. that is critical to our whole system of self-governance. during this hearing, you'll hear time and time again about the president's request to investigate claims of white spread fraud. our witnesses, mr. rosen, mr. donahue and mr. angle stood firm in the face of overbearing political pressure because they understood that their oath was to the constitution and not to the personal or political interests of the president. the president and his allies became keenly aware that with legal challenges exhausted and electoral votes certified, they only hope is a last ditch effort scheme to prevent congress from certifying the win, thus throwing the system to constitutional chaos. the president wanted the department to sow doubt in the election, to make his memberstation action. if the department could just lend its credibility to the conspiracisies, people would have the justification they needed to spread the big lie. president trump wanted the department of justice to say the election was "corrupt" and "leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen." as you will hear today, the department's top leadership refused. not surprisingly, president trump didn't take no for an answer. he didn't accept it from attorney general barr, and he wouldn't accept it from mr. rosen either. so he looked for another attorney general. his third in two weeks. he needed to find someone that was willing to ignore the facts. that is not the norm. let's look at what attorneys general democrats and republicans alike have said about upholding their oath to the constitution. >> attorney general, ultimately owes his loyalty to the integrity of the american people and to the fidelity to the constitution and the legitimate laws of the country. that's what he's ultimately required to do. >> i will be an independent attorney general. ly be the people's lawyer. if however, there were an issue that i thought were that significant, that would compromise my ability to serve as attorney general in the way that i have described that as the people's lawyer, i would not hesitate to resign. >> as you and i decussed to propose to undertake a course of conduct that was in violation of the constitution that would present me with a difficult but not a complex problem. i would have two choices. i could talk him out of it or leave. those are the choices. >> the attorney general's position as a cabinet member is unique from all of the cabinet members. yes, a member of the president's cabinet, but the attorney general has a unique responsibility to provide independent and objective advice to the president or any agency when it is sought and sometimes perhaps when it's not sought. >> everyone in that video from eric holder to jeff sessions spoke as one about the independence of the department. it's a point of pride at justice to apply the law without the president's political self-interests tainting its actions or dictating how it uses its authorities. president trump did find one candidate justice that seemed willing to do anything to help him stay in power. let's hear what president trump's own lawyer, eric hirschman had to say about jeff clark's plan to overturn the election. this video contains strong language. >> when he finished discussing what he planned on doing, i said good [bleep], congratulations. you just said your first act as attorney yeah is committing a felony. you're clearly a candidate for this job. >> who is jeff clark? an environmental lawyer with no experience of leading the entire department of justice. what was his only qualification? that he would do whatever the president wanted him to do. including overthrowing a free and a fair democratic election. president trump's campaign to bend the justice department to his political will culminated in a show down on january 3. today we will take you inside that early evening oval office meeting where top justice department officials met with the president. at stake, the leadership and integrity of the department of justice. >> the meeting talk about another 2 1/2 hours from the time i entered. it was entirely focused on whether there should be a doj leadership change. i would say directly in front of the president, jeff rosen was to my right, jeff clark was to my left. >> jeff clark was proposing that jeff rosen be replaced by jeff clark. and i thought the proposal was asinine. >> what would clark's purported bases for why it was in the president's interest for him to step in? what would he do? how would it change? >> he repeatedly said to the president that if he was put in place, he would conduct real investigations that would uncovered widespread fraud. he would send out the letter that he drafted and that this was a last opportunity to sort of set things straight with this defective election. 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. >> and he was making a pitch. every time he would get clobbered over the head, he would like say, you know, call to order. you're the president. you get a chance to make this decision. you've heard everybody. you can make your determination. we jump back in. you know, another clobber. >> i made the point that jeff clark is not competent to serve as an attorney general. he's never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. he's never been in front of a jury. he retorted by saying well, i've done a lot of complicated appeals and environmental litigation and civil litigation and things like that. i said that's right. you're an environmental lawyer. how about you go back to your office and we'll call you when there's an oil spill. pat cipollone weighed in i remember at one point saying, you know, the letter this guy wants to send that is a murder suicide pact. that will damage everyone that touches it. i never want to see that letter again. so we went along those lines. >> i thought jeff's proposal was nuts. a guy -- at best i can tell, the only thing you know about environmental and election challenges is they both start with e. based on your answers, i'm not sure that you know that. >> the president said suppose i do this. suppose i replace him, jeff rosen with him, jeff clark, what do you do? >> well, we know these men before us did the right thing. think about what happen if these justice officials make a difference decision. what happens if they bow to the pressure? what would that do to us as a democracy, as a nation? imagine a future where the president could screen applicants to the justice department with one question. are you loyal to me or to the constitution? it wouldn't take long to find people welling to pledge their loyalty to the man. we know many of president trump's vocal supporters january 6 also wanted the justice department to do whatever he asked. as long as it meant he could stay in power. they made sure justice department officials heard the protests loudly in front of the department on the way to the capitol on january 6. >> i want to take a moment now to speak to my fellow republicans. imagine the country's top prosecutor with the power to open investigations, subpoena, charge crimes and seek imprisonment. imagine that official pursuing the agenda of the other party instead of that of the american people as a whole. if you're a democrat, imagine it the other way around. today president trump's total disregard for the constitution and his oath will be fully exposed. let's get this hearing underway so we can do our part to protect the freedoms that we offer take for granted so that we can see how close we came to losing it all. i yield back to the chairman. >> we're joined today by three distinguished witnesses who each served in the trump administration in the months preceding january 6th. mr. jeffery rosen served at the department of justice from may 2019 until january 2021. with president trump's nomination and a confirmation of the united states senate, he became the united states deputy attorney general in december 2020, he took the mantel of acting attorney general. mr. richard donahue has served in the department of justice for over 14 years. mr. donahue was an united states attorney for the eastern district of new york and became mr. rosen's principal associate attorney general and finally acting attorney general. he served 20 years in the united states military including the 82nd airborne and a judge advocates general corps. we are also joined by mr. steven engle, the former assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel. he was nominated by the former president and confirmed by the senate during the trump administration. he served from november 2017 to january 2021 and has now returned to private practice. i will now swear in our witnesses. the witnesses will please stamped and raise their right hand. >> do you swear under penalty of perjury that the testimony your about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god? thank you. you may be seated. let the record reflect the witnesses all answered in the affirmative. i now recognize myself for questions. first of all, gentlemen, thank you for being here today. all of you served as former trump's pleasure at the department of justice and top leadership positions with tremendous responsibilities. former attorney general bill barr told the select committee that before he left the department in december 2020, he told president trump on at least three occasions that there were no evidence of widespread election fraud that would have changed the results of the presidential election. mr. rosen, after mr. barr announced his resignation, did donald trump continue to demand that the department of justice investigate his claims of election fraud? >> yes. he asserted that he thought the justice department had not done enough. >> thank you. from the time you took over from attorney general barr until january 3, how often did president trump contact you or the department to push allegations of election fraud? >> so between december 23 and january 3, the president either called me or met with me virtually every day with one or two exceptions like christmas day. before that because it had been announced that i would become the acting attorney general before the date i did, the president had asked that rich donoghue and i go over and meet with him, i believe, december 15 as well. >> so after you had some of these meetings and conversations with the president, what things did the president raise with you? >> so the common element of all of this was the president expressing his dissatisfaction at the justice department in his view had not done enough to investigate election fraud. at different junctures, other topics came up at different intervals so at one point he had raised the question of having a special counsel for election fraud at a number of points he raised requests that i meet with his campaign counsel, mr. guliani. at one point he raised whether the justice department would file a lawsuit in the supreme court. a couple of junctures there were questions about making public statements or about holding a press conference. one of the later junctures was this issue of sending a letter to state legislatures in georgia or other states. so there were different things raised at different parts of -- different intervals with a common theme being the dissatisfaction about what the justice department had done to investigate election fraud. i will say that the justice department declined all of those requests that i was just referencing because we did not think that they were appropriate based on the facts and the law as we understood them. >> so mr. donoghue, december 15, the day after attorney general barr announced his resignation, the president summoned you and mr. rosen to the white house. at this meeting with the president, what did he want to discuss. >> there were a number of topics of discussion that day, mr. chairman. much of the conversation focused on a report that had been recently released relating to michigan on december 13. an organization called the allied security group issued a report that alleged that the dominion voting machines in that country had a 68% error rate. the report was widely covered in the media. we were aware of it. we obtained a copy of it on december 14, the day prior. we circulated to the u.s. attorney's in michigan for their awareness. we had a number of discussions internally. the conversation with the president on that day of the 15th was largely focused on that. he was essentially saying have you seen this report? he was adamant that the report must be accurate. it proved the election was defective and that he won and the department should be using that report to basically tell the american people that the results were not trustworthy. he went on to other theories as well. the bulk of the conversation focused on michigan and the asog report. >> thank you. mr. engle, we know that attorney general barr announced on december 1, 2020, that the department of justice had found no evidence of widespread fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election. so from december 1, 2020, until today, as you sit here, have you ever doubted that top line conclusion? >> no, i've never had any reason to doubt attorney general barr's conclusion. >> thank you. pursuant to section 5 c 8 of house resolution 503, the chair now recognizes the gentleman from illinois, mr. kinzinger for questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman. in the weeks leading to january 6th, the department of justice was fielding almost daily requests from the president to investigate claims of election fraud. each claim was refuted time and time again. an effort attorney general barr described as whack-a-mole. when each of the president's efforts failed, he went to installing a new attorney general to say the election was illegal and corrupt so he could stay in power. president trump started leaning on the justice department the first chance he got. november 29th, his first television interview after the election. >> where is the doj and the fbi in all of this, mr. president? you have laid out serious charges here. shouldn't this be something that the fbi is investigating? are they? >> missing in action. >> is the doj investigating? >> missing in action. can't tell you where they are. >> republican congressman echoed the president two days later. they wrote a letter to barr for a shocking lack of action. investigating the claims of election fraud. that same day, attorney general barr stated publicly that president trump's claims had no merit. ignoring the top law enforcement officer in the country, republican congressman amplified the stolen election message to the american public. let's listen. >> and so there's widespread evidence of fraud because people haven't done their jobs. durham and barr will deserve a big notation in history when it's written of the rise and fall of the united states if they don't clean up this mess, clean up the fraud, do your jobs and save this little experiment in self-government. >> again, i turn to my colleagues calling on attorney general barr to let us know what he's doing. >> we're already working on challenging the certified electors. and the courts. how pathetic are the courts? >> january 6, i'm joining with the fighters in congress and we're going to object to electors from states that didn't run clean elections. democracy is left unattended without fighting. >> the alternate date of significance is january 6. this is how the process works. the ultimate arbiter here, the ultimate check and balance is the united states congress. when something is done in an unconstitutional fashion, we have a duty to step forward and have this debate and have this vote on the 6th of january. >> today is the day america patriots start taking down names and kicks ass. >> mr. donoghue, december 27th, you had a 90-minute conversation with the president where he raised false claim after false claim with you and mr. rosen. how did you respond to what you called a stream of allegations? >> the december 27th conversation was in my mind an escalation of the earlier conversations as the former acting a.g. indicated there were a lot of communications that preceded that. as we got later in the month of december, the president became more urgent and adamant that we needed to do our job. step up and do our job. he had this arsenal of allegations that he wanted to rely on. so i felt in that conversation that it was incumbent on me to make it very clear to the president what our investigations had revealed. and that we had concluded based on actual investigations, actual witness interviews, actual reviews of documents that these allegations simply had no merit. i wanted to try to cut through the noise because it was clear to us that there were a lot of people whispering in his ear, feeding him these theories and allegations. i felt that being very blunt might help make it clear to the president these allegations were not true. as he went through them and what for me was a 90-minute conversation or so, for the former acting a.g. was a two-hour conversation as the president went through them, i went piece by piece to say no, that's false. that is not true. to correct him really in a serial fashion as he moved from one theory to another. >> can you give me an example of one of two of those theorys? >> one that was very clear at that point was the report that i mentioned earlier from michigan. allied security operations group released this report of 60% error rate. there was a hand recount. had nothing to do with the department. the department did not request that. that was pursuant to litigation by other parties. there was a hand recount. they compared the hand recount to the machines. for the ballots that were counted by machine, more than 15,000, there was one error, one ballot. i did a quick calculation and came up with .003%. well within tolerance. the president was so fix kated on the asog report in the december 15 conversation that in fact, our investigation revealed that the error rate was .0063%. so that was the president's example of what people are telling you that is not true. that you cannot and should not be relying on. so that was one very explicit one. we went through a series of others. the truck driver that claimed to have moved an entire tractor trailer of ballots from new york to pennsylvania. that was also incorrect. we did an investigation with the fbi interviewing witnesses at the front end and the back end of that trailer's transit from new york to pennsylvania. we looked at loading manifests, interviewed witnesses including the driver. we knew it wasn't true. whether the driver believed it or not, it wasn't clear to me. it's not true. that's another one that i tried to educate the president on. there were a series of others mostly in swing states. he wanted to talk about georgia, the state farm arena video which he believed for various reasons was as he said it fraud staring you in the face. >> were any of the allegations that he brought up found credible? did you find any of them credible? >> no. >> did you take handwritten notes quoting president? >> i did. to make it clear, attorney general rosen called me on my government cell phone and said he had been on the phone with the president for some time. the president had a lot of allegations. i was better versed in what the department had done because i had closer contact with the investigations. the a.g. asked me to get on the call. i agreed. i began taking notes only because at the outset the president made an allegation i had not heard. i had heard many of these things. many of them were investigated. when the president at least when i came into the conversation, when he began speaking, he brought up an allegation that i was unaware of. that concerned us. so i simply reached out and grabbed a note pad all of my stand and a pen and started jotting it down. it had to do with an allegation that more than 200,000 votes were certified in the state of pennsylvania that were not actually cast. sometimes the president would say 205, sometimes 250. i had not heard this before. i wanted to get the allegation down clearly so that we could look into it if appropriate. that's why i started taking those notes. as the conversation continued, i continued to take the notes. >> let's take a look at the notes, if we could right now. as we can see, you quote. trump asking where is doj just like we heard him say in his first television interview. how did you respond to that? >> so both the acting a.g. and i tried to explain to the president on this occasion and on several other occasions that the justice department has a very important, very specific and very limited role in these elections. states run their elections. we're not quality control for the states. we are obviously interested in and have a mission that relates to criminal conduct, in relation to federal elections. we also have related civil rights responsibilities. we have an important be role. the bottom line is if a state ran their election in such a way that it was defective, that is to the state or congress to correct. it's not for the justice department to step in. i certainly understood the president as a laymen not understanding why the justice department didn't have at least a civil role to step in and bring suit on behalf of the american people. we tried to explain that to him. the american people do not constitute the client for the united states justice department. the one and only client of the justice department is the united states government. the united states government goes not have standing as we were told by our internal teams led by steve engle as well as the office of the solicitor general, researched it and gave us thorough clear opinions that we didn't have standing and we tried to explain that to the president on numerous occasions. >> let's take a look at another one of your notes. you noted that mr. rosen said to mr. trump "doj can't and won't snap its fingers and change the outcome of the election." how did the president respond to that? >> he responded quickly and said that's not what i'm asking you to do. i'm asking you to say it was corrupt and leave it up to me and the republican congressmen. >> let's put up the notes where you quote the president you said the president said just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. so mr. donahue, that is a direct quote from president trump, correct? >> that's an exact quote from the president, yes. >> the next note shows that even that the president kept pressing even though he had been told there was no evidence of fraud. the president keeps saying the department was "obligated to tell people that this was an illegal corrupt election." >> that's also an exact quote from the president, yes. >> let me be clear. did the department find any evidence to conclude that there was anything illegal or corrupt about the 2020 election? >> there were isolated instances of fraud. none of them came close to calling in to question the outcome of the election in any individual state. >> how would you describe the president's demeanor during that call? >> he was more agitated than he was on december 15. the president throughout all of these meetings and telephone conversations was adamant that he had won. we were not doing our job. but it did escalate over time until ultimately the meeting on january 3, which was the most extreme of the meetings and conversations. >> i want to make sure that we don't gloss this over. just say it was corrupt and leave the rest to us. the president wanted the top justice department officials to declare that the election was corrupt even though as he knew there was absolutely no evidence to support that statement. the president didn't care about actually investigating the facts. he just wanted the department of justice to put its stamp of approval on the lies. who was going to help him? jeff clark. mr. rosen, on christmas eve, your first official day as the acting attorney general, president trump called you. what did he want to talk about? >> the same things that he was talking about publicly. he wanted to talk about that he thought the election had been stolen or was corrupt and that there was widespread fraud. i had told him that our reviews had not shown that to be the case. so we had extended discussion probably 15, maybe 20 minutes, something like that. with him urging that the department of justice should be doing more with regard to election fraud. >> did he mention jeff clark's name? >> yes. it was just in passing. he made what i regarded as a peculiar reference. it was asking did i know jeff clark. i told him i did. the conversation just moved on. when i hung up, i was quizzical as to how does the president even know mr. clark. i was not aware that they had ever met or the president was involved with any of the issues in the civil division. >> a bit of a surprise when he brought his name up? >> yes. >> mr. clark was the acting head of the civil division and head ohio environmental and natural resources division at the department of justice. do either of those divisions have any role whatsoever in investigating election fraud, sir? >> no. to my awareness, jeff clark had had no prior involvement of any kind with regard to the work that the department was doing, that attorney general barr had talked about to this committee. >> let's take a look at why the president mentioned jeff clark's name to mr. rosen on christmas eve. december 21, some republican members of congress met with president trump in the white house to talk about overturning the 2020 election. let's here marjorie taylor green talk about how this meeting got set up. >> i was the only new member at the meeting. i called president trump on saturday and said we've got to have a meeting. there's many of us that feel like this election has been stolen. >> so on the screen, you'll see president trump's chief of staff mark meadows tweeted about the meeting after it happened. he said several members of congress just finished a meeting in the oval office with president donald trump preparing to fight back against mounting ed:0 voter fraud. stay tuned. on the same day, he met with these republican members of congress. president trump called into that conservative political convention and he used the opportunity to pressure the department of justice to investigate his bogus claims. >> we need a party that can fight and we need great congressmen and women that are doing it and we have great fighters. we won this in a landslide and they know it and we need backing from like the justice department and other people that have to finally step up. >> the collect committee obtained reports from the national archives showed that scott perry was one of the congressman that joined that meeting. we learned from white house records that you'll see on the screen that the very next day, representative perry returned to the white house. this time he brought a justice department official named jeffery clark. representative perry provided the following statement to his local tv affiliate. he said "throughout the past four years, i've worked with a six and the attorney general clark on various matters. when president trump asked if i would make an introduction, i obliged." why mr. clark? let's hear what mr. guliani said. >> you remember ever recommending to anybody that mr. clark, meaning jeffery clark at doj, be given election-related responsibilities? >> you mean beyond the president? >> correct. >> well, beyond the president, i do recall saying to people that somebody should be put in charge of the justice department who is isn't frightened of what is going to be done to their reputation. because the justice department was filled with people like that. >> should put somebody that is not frightened of what will be done to their reputation. when you told the president that you wouldn't pursue baseless claims of fraud, was it because you were worried about your reputation? >> no, not at all. >> mr. clark's name was also mentioned in the white house in late december and early january as described by a top aide to mark meadows, cassidy hutchison. >> was your understanding that representative kerry was pushing for a specific person at the justice department? >> he wanted mr. jeff clark to take over. >> mr. rosen, after a call with president trump on december 24th, you spoke with mr. clark on december 26 about his contact with the president. can you tell us about that conversation? >> yes. because i had been quizzical about why his name had come up, i called him. i tried to explore if he would chair if there was something that i ought to know. after back and forth, he acknowledged that shortly before christmas he had gone to a meeting in the oval office with the president. that of course surprised me. and i asked him how did that happen. he was defensive. he said has it been unplanned that he had been talking to someone he referred to as general perry, but i believe is congressman perry. unbeknownst to him, he was asked to go to a meeting. he found himself at the oval office and he was apologetic for that. i said, well you didn't tell me about it. it wasn't authorized and you didn't tell me after the fact, this is not appropriate. but he was contrite. he said it had been inadvertent and wouldn't happen again. if anybody asked him, he would notify rich donahue and me. >> is there a policy that governs who can have contact directly with the white house? >> yes. so across many administrations for a long period of time, there's a policy that particularly with regard to criminal investigations restricts that both white house and the justice department end, those more sensitive issues to the highest ranks. so for criminal matters, the policy for a long time has been that only the attorney general and the deputy attorney general from the doj side can have conversations about criminal matters with the white house or the attorney general and the deputy attorney general can authorize something with their permission but the idea is to make sure that the top rung of the justice department knows about it and is in the thing to control it, make sure only appropriate things are done. >> mr. engle, from your perspective, why is it important to have a policy like mr. rosen just discussed? >> it's critical that the department of justice conducts their investigations free from reality or free from political interference. people can get in trouble if people from the white house are speaking with people from the department. that's why we need to keep these communications as infrequent and at the highest levels as possible to make sure that people that don't understand the implications don't run afoul of those contact policies. >> so the select committee conducted an informal interview with pat cipollone and pat philbin about their conversation with mr. clark. neither have agreed to sit for interviews. >> pat cipollone told the select committee that he interviewed when he was told that he met with the president about legal matters which was against white house policy. mr. cipollone told mr. clark to stand down and he didn't. on the same day acting attorney general rosen told mr. clark to stop talking to the white house. representative perry was urging chief of staff mark meadows to elevate clark within the department ohio justice. you can see on the screen behind me a series of texting between representative perry and mr. meadows. they show that representative perry requested that mr. clark be elevated within the department. representative perry tells mr. meadows on december 26 that "mark, just checking in as time continues to count down. 11 days until january 6 and 25 days to inauguration, we have to get going. representative perry says, "mark, you should call jeff. i just got off the phone with him. he explained to me why the principal deputy won't work especially with the fbi. they will view it as not having the authority to enforce what needs to be done." mr. meadows responds with, i got it. i think i understand. let me work on the deputy position. representative perry then texts, roger. just sent you something on signal. just sent you an updated file. did you call jeff clark? mr. donoghue, representative perry called you the next day on december 27. who told him to call you? >> my understanding is the president did at the outset of the call, congressman. perry told me that he was calling at the behest of the president. >> what did he want to talk about? >> about pennsylvania in particular. he gave me some background about why he in particular doesn't trust the fbi and why the american people don't necessarily trust the fbi. and then he went in to some allegations specific to pennsylvania which included amongst others this allegation that the secretary of state had certified more votes than were cast. >> did you direct the local u.s. attorney's office to investigate that claim? >> mr. perry said that he had a great deal of information. that investigations had been done, that there was some sort of forensic-type report that would be helpful to me. i didn't know congressman perry. i never heard of him before this conversation. i said sir, if you have something that you think is relevant to what the justice department's mission is, feel free to send it to me. he did. i was in route from new york to washington. i got it. i looked at it on my iphone. i couldn't read it all in transit like that. i look at it to get a feel for what it was and i forwarded it to the district be attorney for the western portion of pennsylvania. >> did they get back to you? >> scott brady, u.s. attorney looked at it. took him a couple days with he got back in relatively short order with a clear explanation why there was no foundation for concern. the secretary state had not certified more votes than 80 actually cast. the difference between the 5.25

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rupert gave us a billion dollars. he would like to give it back was a lot of the motivation for making it a success. i have a clip for you. >> dana: oh no. >> >> bill: what was your start date? >> dana: april of 2009 i became a contributor. >> bill: i have something from may of 2009. >> dana: it's 2006. i haven't seen this. >> bill: this is may of 2009. >> dana: does it exist? >> bill: roll it. >> dana: oh no. >> i'm joined by fox news contributor former white house press secretary dew point. he betrayed us and now we feel like we have a tire track on our chest where the bus rolled over us. >> not only that but a lot of cabinet members under the bus. it will get crowded under there and i think what this signaled this weekend the public option is dead. it is not coming back. >> dana: i'll get that haircut tomorrow. >> bill: you are bringing back.

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and of that country's long running civil war but it is still struggling with the scars and the conflict left behind the war broke out in 1903 pitting the singhalese military against the toggle liberation tigers the tunnels were fighting for an independent state for this ethnic minority in may of 2009 the sri lankan military defeated thomas separatists but at a huge human cost it's believed that some $50000.00 fighters and over 100000 civilians were killed many of them tom else today some 20000 people are still missing their fates on know d.w. went to northern sri lanka where survivors have taken the search into their own hands. 10 years of demanding an answer do you have anything still doesn't know what happened to her missing daughter the war was winding down she says when masked men tore 16 year old jeromey from her arms and fled. there were did i let go of