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. 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. 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. 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. As Rosen and Donoghue listened, Clark told Trump that he would send the letter if the president named him attorney general. “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.” 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.
Colorado guilty plea a first for US election task force | Associated Press
A Nebraska man has pleaded guilty to making death threats against Colorado’s top elections official in a what officials say is the first such plea obtained by a federal task force devoted to protecting elections workers across the U.S. who have been subject to increasing threats since the 2020 presidential election. Travis Ford, 42, pleaded guilty in Denver federal court to sending threats to Secretary of State Jena Griswold on social media. Griswold is a national advocate for elections security who has received thousands of threats over her insistence that the 2020 election was secure and that former President Donald Trump’s claims that it was stolen from him are false. Thursday’s plea was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado and was first reported by The Denver Gazette. Ford, a resident of Lincoln, Nebraska, faces up to two years in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 6. It’s the first guilty plea obtained by the U.S. Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which was launched last year to investigate threats of violence against elections workers, the office said. FBI agents in Colorado and Nebraska investigated the case.
Full Article: Colorado guilty plea a first for US election task force | AP News