0 the secretary stated and the five million that was on a public facing website was that the information on the website was incomplete because four kuntys had not uploaded their data. >> so no credibility? >> zero to that. >> during that call, did scott perry mentioned mr. clark and what did he say about him if so? >> he mentioned mr. clark. he said something to the effect of i think jeff clark is great and i think he's the kind of guy that can get in there and do something about this stuff. this is coming on the heels of the president having mentioned mr. clark in the afternoon call earlier that day. >> i'd like to yield to the gentle woman from wyoming, vice chair cheney. >> as we discussed at the center of mr. clark's plan to undue the president's election law was a letter. mr. clark e-mailed you and a draft letter he wanted you to sign and to send to georgia state fishes. you testified that this could have grave constitutional consequences. mr. donahue, can you tell us what you meant by that? >> well, i had to read both the e-mail and the attached letter twice to make sure that i really understood what he was proposing because it was so extreme to me, i had a hard time getting my head around it initially. i read it. i understood it for what he intended. i had to sit down and compose what i thought was an appropriate response. i initially went next door to the acting a.g.'s office but he was not there. we were both on the e-mail. i knew we would have a similar reaction to it. he was not in his office. i returned and sat down to draft a response. i thought it was important to give a prompt response rejecting this out of hand. there were -- in my response, i explained a number of reasons that i thought this was not the department's role to suggest or dictate to state legislatures how they should select their electors and more importantly, it was not based on facts. it was contrary to facts departmented by investigations over the last weeks and months. i responded to that. for the department to insert itself in to the police call process this way i think would have had grave consequences for the country and could have spiralled us to a constitutional crisis and i wanted to make sure that he understood. he didn't really appreciate it. >> what was mr. clark's reaction when you sent this e-mail to him? >> he didn't respond to the e-mail. we met shortly after that, after i sent the e-mail. the acting a.g. returned. i went to his office. he had just read it. he had a very similar reaction to me. he was exasperated and he said that he told one of his administrative assistances to get jeff clark up here. we wanted to talk to him face to face about this. the three of us had a meeting probably around 1,800 in the deputy attorney general's conference room. >> one of the things that you said to mr. clark is "what you're doing is nothing less than the united states justice department meddling in the outcome of a presidential election. i assume you conveyeded that to him? >> in those very word. it was a very contentious meeting. yes, that was said amongst other things. >> and despite this contentious meeting and your reaction to the letter, did mr. clark continue to push his concept in the coming days? >> he did, yes. we had subsequent meetings and conversations. the acting a.g. probably had nor contact with him than i did. between the 28th and the 2nd when we had another in-person meeting, he continued to move down this path. he began calling witnesses and apparently conducting investigations of his own. and he got a briefing from dni about purported foreign intelligence interference. when we thought there was no basis for that part of his concern, that he would retreat. instead he doubled down and be said okay, there's no foreign interference. there's enough allegations out there that we should send this letter. you'd think after a couple of days of this, why would come to the same conclusion, that it was unfounded. >> when he conducted investigations on his own, did you confront him? >> yes. >> what was his reaction? >> he got very defensive. there were a series of conversations. i remember the conversation and the meeting on january 2. that got even more confrontational. he was defensive and you know, similar to his earlier reaction when i said this is nothing less than justice department meddling in an election. his reaction was this way. he clung to that. spewed out some of these theories, some of which we heard from the president and those floating around the internet and media an insisting that the department needed to act and needed to send those letters. >> the committee has learned that mr. clark was working with another attorney named ken klukowski who drafted this letter to georgia with mr. clark. mr. klukowski had arrived at the department on december 15 with just 36 kays left until the inauguration. he was specifically assigned to work under jeff clark. mr. klukowski also worked with john eastman who we showed you at our hearing last week was one of the primary architects of president trump's scheme to overturn the election. the georgia letter that we've been discussing specifically talks about some of dr. eastman's theories including "the purpose of the special session that the department recommends would be for the general assembly to determine whether the election failed to make a proper and valid choice between the candidates. such as a general assembly could take whatever action is necessary to ensure that one of the slates of electors cast on december 14 will be accepted by congress on january 6. the committee learned that the relationship between dr. eastman and mr. klukowski persisted after mr. klukowski joined the justice department. let's take a look at an e-mail recommending that mr. klukowski and dr. eastman brief vice president pence and his staff. are the recipients of this e-mail including chief of staff to louis gohmert and the e-mail says as stated last week, i believe the vice president and his staff would benefit greatly from a briefing by john and ken. as i also mentioned, we want to make sure that we don't overexpose ken given his new position. this e-mail suggests that mr. klukowski was working with jeffery clark to draft the proposed letter to georgia officials to overturn their certified election and working with dr. eastman to help the haven't to overturn the election. i want to thank our witnesses for being here today and to answer questions about this letter and other issues. we asked the same questions to mr. clark. here's how he answered. >> did you discuss this draft letter to georgia officials with the president of the united states? >> i assert executive privilege. just restate it nor the abundance of caution. >> if you looked at these draft letters in the first paragraph, second sentence says the department will update you as we're able on investigatory progress but at the time we identified significant concerns that my have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including state of georgia. isn't that in fact contrary to what attorney general barr had said? >> yes. >> mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. chairman, i reserve. >> pursuant to the orreder of the committee of today, the chair declares the committee in recess for a period of ten minutes. >> neil: all right. you're watching the fifth hearing this month, the sixth in all the you count the last opening hearing back last july almost a year ago from the january 6th committee. this one focusing on how president trump at the time tried to manipulate the justice department. as one of the witnesses said, to do his bidding on a rigged election and whether that -- forcing that view was in itself pressuring justice department officials to go along with president trump's argument at the time that the election was rigged and that votes were stolen and to -- again, these are former top justice department officials who were going back and forth with the president at the time to say there was no there there. there was no ill legality being committed here and they couldn't sign on to what got up to be ramped up pressure on mr. trump to replace the acting attorney general. but those in the room would not go along with those plans. just some of the inkling of material and information we're getting from this hearing right now as we're learning that there could be an expanded sort of examination of a tik tok on exactly what was transpiring long before january 6. so welcome, everybody. i'm neil cavuto. this is "your world." briefly taking a break in these hearings and the impact of what we've heard, bret baier is with us, the "special report" host and we have andy mccarthy, fox news contributorer contributor to the u.s. attorney. jonathan turley as well. the g.w. law professor. jonathan, you have a damning tick tok on all of these gentlemen in a position of trying to answer a president who was saying what was going on was unfair and he wanted the justice department to get involved to pursue this and they did not. i'm wondering your take on these revelations. some are not new. maybe just the tone and timing -- >> hi. this is andy. are you talking to me? >> neil: andy, go ahead. maybe you're having trouble hearing me. jonathan, the significance of what you heard thus far. >> well, it is significant. as you know, it's more of an amplification than what we knew of before the hearings. we knew there were the confrontations. it's very disturbing. the letter that was drafted for the state legislatures was wildly inappropriate. these attorneys did the right thing in many respects we can take pride in the fact that so many consistently held firm and said this is not a role for the department of justice. what is also interesting is to get the details on how they did look into the allegations. you know, part of the message we got from former president trump is that nobody is looking into this. these were lawyers that were going to them and saying we did. we went and looked at what was on the truck in this one allegation. it's not true. it's not panning out. that does add details what is missing again unfortunately is any other sides. the fact that this is not a balanced committee is a real shame. because you know, this is powerful stuff. these are very credible individuals. having someone there to ask probing questions rather than scripted questions i think would have added greater authenticity and power to this hearing. >> neil: indeed. president trump said the same thing, bret baier, that that was a bungle by kevin mccarthy to shut that down or to get republicans on that committee that were not kinzinger or certainly cheney. but i'm wondering what you think of the impact of these statements that your hearing, bret. this has been out there. the december 27th called that the president said just said the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me. what did you make of that? >> yeah, that's from richard donoghue, the trump administration, doj official. remember, all of these people served at the pleasure of the president in his administration at doj. donoghue saying that he took clear notice of that call and just say it was corrupt, leave the rest to me and the gop congress, this is after that presentation that jonathan talked about where they methodically went through and said yes, there's small instances of fraud, irregularities, but none of them according to all of these officials, according to rosen, none of them reached the level of overturning any single state to change the outcome of the election. we've been through some of this. to lay it out like this is different. they're making the case obviously pointed at the former president, donald trump. i think it's interesting that federal agents searched the home of jeffery clark just yesterday. we're now, neil, 536 days after that meeting where there's this implication that clark will be inserted as the head of doj, as the acting attorney general and there's this push back and resignations that they say will happen. why is it that long? why is it time to this hearing? maybe andy and jonathan know that. >> neil: to we know what the they're looking for? >> we do. we have rush vaught, a colleague who put out a tweet saying that he's at the center for renewing america saying yesterday more than a dozen doj law enforcement officials searched jeff clark's house in a predawn raid, put him in the streets and took his electronic devices because jeff saw fit to investigate voter fraud. this is not america, folks. there's a different portrayal of jeff clark and his role and not just looking at voter fraud but maybe trying to change the direction of what the doj was doing sat that moment. >> neil: you know, andy, i hope you can hear me now. >> i can. yes. >> neil: there's a lot of similarities here. i know it's night and day, between the pressure on justice department officials, these officials and the sort of, you know, saturday night massacre that we remember in the nixon administration when he was trying to get someone at least to do his bidding in the white house. this is a different beast, i grant you. you get the feeling of this committee that they can't make criminal charges of its own. that's where it wants to go. maybe recommend such action on the part of the justice department. we're a long way from there. but these examples and these citings and these conversations, if they are what they appear to be, are they the stuff of which criminal charges can be made? >> well, it's certainly possible, neil. i've always thought and continue to think that this process is a proxy for the investigation that they failed to do 17 months ago in connection with the post january 6 impeachment. i think that continues to be borne out. they're suggesting the criminal justice system as a substitute, i would say a poor substitute for that. they basically want to intonight him for an impeachable offense because the time for impeaching has come and gone. if you were going to, i would think the justice department officials that were sitting at the witness table, if they were asked about this, the little bit that happened right before the recess, i think one of the things that they would point out is that, you know, the last thing that representative cheney point out is that jeff clark took the fived when he was asked the same questions that they asked the witnesses. if a prosecutor brought that out in a trial, that would be a mistrial. that's like a basic constitutional due process violation. for the life of me, i continue not to understand not only why this committee would not present a different perspective when they have witnesses that could clearly deal with cross examination if there were cross examination. and why do this very powerful presentation, which i think this last hour certainly was, and then at the end point out that people are taking the fifth amendment which they have a constitutional entitlement to do and the courts have said if you let that infect a fact-finding proceeding, it's a constitutional violation. i don't understand it. >> neil: they're going back very shortly, gentlemen. jonathan turley, you're hearing this back and forth about what it was like in the trump white house after the election right to and through january 6. it has a sense of desperation to it and a desperate president trying -- forcing his way in office. what do you come away with thus far? >> i think they're making a stronger case than what we knew. this is that amplification of how many people were saying the same thing that they had run count the allegations that were untrue. that is coming through. but going to andy's point, it's so scripted that they don't even have opening statements. it's so controlled that it make kabuke look like an improvisational dance. there's no room nor the witnesses to go to the left or right. that really undermines it. it's not suggesting that these witnesses would be saying something different. it's that it would be good to have some exchanges that don't feel quite as scripted. >> neil, can i say one more thing? >> neil: sure. >> the premise from bennie thompson and liz cheney is that we were on the brink of losing or democracy. if anything, i think the testimony shows not only the arizona house speaker, all of the state officials, these officials in doj that were working for president trump >> n them had buckled, it would be a very different -- >> 100%. >> neil: thanks, bret. we're going back to the hearings rights now. this is the fifth hearing. we're putting things up a to resume a couple weeks from now, new video, new testimony, potentially new witnesses. a lot of this is a recreation of events that we already know full well. but it's the detail of those events of whatting going on and who was talking to the president and when at a time when the president was not hearing anything of the validity of the election, just the fact that he didn't like the election results. back to the hearing.