Public Notice

Share this post

How the latest J6 hearing added to Trump's legal jeopardy, explained by Ryan Goodman

www.publicnotice.co

How the latest J6 hearing added to Trump's legal jeopardy, explained by Ryan Goodman

"My way of thinking of it is Trump took an affirmative step within that conspiracy."

Aaron Rupar
Jun 23, 2022
43
2
Share
Former acting deputy AG Richard Donoghue’s handwritten notes about a December 2020 conversation with Trump. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty)

Three days before the January 6 insurrection, President Trump wanted to replace acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen with a relatively obscure assistant AG named Jeffrey Clark, because Clark (unlike Rosen) was willing to use the DOJ’s power in a lawless, evidence-free effort to strongarm officials in states like Georgia into decertifying Biden’s victory.

The plan was so far advanced, in fact, that White House call logs from that day referred to Clark as “acting attorney general.”

Twitter avatar for @atrupar
Aaron Rupar @atrupar
White House call logs from January 3 show that Jeff Clark was referred to as "acting attorney general" even though he didn't officially have the job
8:57 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2022
243Likes82Retweets

Trump only relented and kept Rosen around when top DOJ officials made clear to him that not only would they resign if Clark, who they clearly held in low esteem, was elevated, but also that the move was likely to backfire.

Twitter avatar for @atrupar
Aaron Rupar @atrupar
Engel on what he said to Trump: "All anyone's going to think is that you went through 2 AGs in 2 weeks, until you found the environmental guy to sign this thing. The story is not going to be that DOJ has found massive corruption that would've changed the result of the election."
9:08 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2022
332Likes115Retweets

The above chain of events came into focus during Thursday’s January 6 committee hearing about Trump’s pressure campaign against the DOJ. It also contained revelations about the desperate efforts government officials made to substantiate Trump’s crazed conspiracy theories, Trump’s desire for the DOJ to seize voting machines and simply declare the election “corrupt” and then “leave the rest to me and Republican congressmen,” which House Republicans sought pardons in the final days of the Trump administration, and much, much more. (If you missed the hearing, you can see my full Twitter thread of video highlights starting here.)

To get expert perspective on the key takeaways, I spoke to Ryan Goodman, a former special counsel to the general counsel for the Department of Defense who’s a founding co-editor-in-chief of Just Security, in addition to working these days as a professor of law at NYU.

A transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity, follows.


Public Notice is a reader-supported publication. The best way to make this work sustainable is with a paid subscription (but free ones are appreciated too).

Support my work with a paid subscription


Aaron Rupar

What revelations from today's hearing about Trump's pressure campaign on the DOJ stood out the most to you?

Ryan Goodman

One thing that was very new was Eric Herschmann, White House lawyer, telling Jeff Clark directly that his very first step as attorney general, if he sends this letter [to Georgia officials on behalf of the DOJ basically asking them to overturn Biden’s victory], would be to commit a felony.

Twitter avatar for @atrupar
Aaron Rupar @atrupar
Former WH lawyer Eric Herschmann says, with some profanities mixed in, that he told Jeff Clark he would be committing felonies if he went through with his plan to overturn the election
7:24 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2022
855Likes232Retweets

That's powerful because it's not just Jeff Clark sending that letter. Trump’s scheme, Trump’s plan, is to send the letter to the states to tell them to decertify because, lo and behold, the second sentence in it says the DOJ has essentially found election fraud — which is a lie. So I thought that was pretty remarkable.

The second thing to me is just the way the committee told a narrative that’s new in a sense of how they put the pieces together. And that is, it’s not just about Trump lying as to whether or not he lost the election. It's that Trump lied about what the Department of Justice had found, and he knew it. So we don't need a debate about what was in Trump’s head or if he thought he really lost. Trump knew, because the Department of Justice was telling him on a daily basis that they didn't find any credible foundation for any of these allegations of widespread fraud.

Twitter avatar for @atrupar
Aaron Rupar @atrupar
Former acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue details a lengthy December 27 meeting with Trump in which Trump urgently implored him to investigate his election lies. Donoghue says he refuted Trump's claims one by one.
7:45 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2022
397Likes111Retweets

I thought that was a remarkable thread that went through the whole hearing. Some of what they covered is old, but the way in which they put it together with the live witnesses, I thought something different happened today.

Aaron Rupar

You tweeted about how today's hearing showed the "strength of the case of prosecutors to prove criminal intent."

Twitter avatar for @rgoodlaw
Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw
Important distinction @RepLizCheney makes here: Trump didn't just lie about existence of fraud/that he lost. Trump lied about what Dept of Justice/FBI had found (they'd found no evidence of widespread fraud). Shows strength of the case for prosecutors to prove criminal intent.
Twitter avatar for @atrupar
Aaron Rupar @atrupar
Cheney begins the fifth January 6 committee hearing by saying a focus will be an unsigned draft letter Trump and Jeffrey Clark wanted the DOJ to send to Georgia officials citing known lies to urge them to convene a special session to approve a fake set of electors https://t.co/1BNNGErZsS
7:18 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2022
973Likes382Retweets

How much did today's hearing add to Trump's legal jeopardy? Does the fact he never followed through with firing Rosen protect him at all?

Ryan Goodman

I think it added significantly. We could just take this as one chapter, and if it were the only chapter of January 6, this is a compelling case. It's the reason that Clark is advised that he'd be committing a felony. It's the reason that Donoghue also says that this will create a constitutional crisis if they try to go through with it.

Now, they did try to go through with it. So my way of thinking of it is Trump took an affirmative step within that conspiracy. Yes, he didn’t fire Rosen, but he actually hired the new attorney general. He had already given the position to Clark, and we kind of knew that before, but then today came the revelation that the White House log had already started to call Clark the acting attorney general by around 4:19 p.m. on January 3.

Aaron Rupar

You mentioned how close we were to a constitutional crisis.

Twitter avatar for @rgoodlaw
Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw
This is how close we came to a true constitutional crisis. Jan 3 4:19-4:22pm: White House started referring to Jeff Clark as Acting Attorney General. That day Clark could have sent the letter that Donoghue told Clark would have "spiraled us into a constitutional crisis."
Twitter avatar for @JoyceWhiteVance
Joyce Alene @JoyceWhiteVance
Trump's plot to corrupt DOJ was so far along that WH call logs designated Jeff Clark as AG before meeting where Rosen & Donoghue faced Trump down, told him DOJ senior officials were all ready to resign if he made Clark AG. https://t.co/aGCwjM4vFh
9:07 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2022
597Likes285Retweets

Expand on what that would’ve looked like, and how do you think things might've played out had Trump taken the step of making Clark acting AG?

Ryan Goodman

If Trump had dismissed Rosen, the next step was very obviously going to be that Jeffrey Clark as acting attorney general of the United States sends a letter to Georgia and several other battleground states saying something to the effect of, the Department of Justice has determined that there's real concern about election fraud and we strongly encourage you to uphold the constitution by decertify your electors within three days of January 6.

That would've thrown the entire thing into an absolute tumult. Part of the question would would’ve been, what in the heck is the Department of Justice even doing in this process? That's not its role, as Clark was being told by his colleagues. It was just such an outlandish scheme, but that's the bomb that would've dropped.

Twitter avatar for @atrupar
Aaron Rupar @atrupar
"It was so extreme to me I had a hard time getting my head around it initially" -- Donoghue on the letter Clark wanted DOJ to send to Georgia basically calling for a new slate of electors
8:06 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2022
384Likes103Retweets

As a counterfactual one question is, well, what if all the folks who said they were resigning would resigned and then speak to the public about what was going on? But that's part of the constitutional crisis. It looks as though the entire leadership of the Department of Justice would've been beheaded and resigned, as well as the White House counsel.

Aaron Rupar

Have these hearings significantly altered your thinking about how likely it is Trump is prosecuted?

Ryan Goodman

They have altered my sense of how this is going to go down. I do think it bolsters both the Justice Department case and then the kind of wild card, which is that Trump gets indicted in the Fulton County district attorney case [for his involvement in trying to overturn the election in Georgia, including demanding the secretary of state to “find” votes for him].

I think the evidence is compelling. The public that’s watching can see a very compelling case and it gives cover to the Department of Justice and the Fulton County district attorney to move forward expeditiously and to at least cross the very first threshold, which is simply to ensure that there is a full blown criminal investigation into these matters. We don't know that that's happening at the Justice Department. That’s happening in the Georgia case. But I think that if that is not happening as of the start of June [on the federal level], that surely to goodness will be happening now. There's so much that has been presented publicly that crosses the bar several times over for the threshold required to open an investigation.

Aaron Rupar

For laypeople, briefly explain the significance of a number of House Republicans who worked with Trump on overturning the election asking for pardons.

Twitter avatar for @January6thCmte
January 6th Committee @January6thCmte
Witnesses told the Select Committee that Trump considered offering pardons to a wide range of individuals connected to the President.
9:31 PM ∙ Jun 23, 2022
4,063Likes1,516Retweets

Might this place any of them in legal jeopardy?

Ryan Goodman

It does in a sense because it seems very incriminating that they would seek a pardon. Adam Kinzinger said something like that — why would you seek a pardon unless you are basically guilty of a crime?

Of course they'll have a response. First, they're denying it, still, despite the testimony for multiple witnesses. But that the other is that they'll say, oh, you know, we're just deeply concerned that the Justice Department would be politicized under a Biden administration and they'd come after us in a witch hunt, so that's why we wanted preemptive pardon.

They'll say things like that. It means there's maybe something there — you know, where there's smoke, there's fire. But we don't have any other strong evidence as to what exactly were the crimes that they thought they had committed. That's difficult to know.


Thank for you checking out this edition of Public Notice. This is it for me this week but I’ll be back Monday with more. Cheers — Aaron


43
2
Share
2 Comments
LuluBelle
Jun 23, 2022

I really hope Ginni Thomas is being investigated as well.

Expand full comment
Reply
Runfastandwin
Jun 23, 2022

If they had any integrity they would’ve all resigned on the spot whether or not Clark was installed. NOW they want credit after basically saying nothing for 18 months? Screw em. MAGAT pricks every last one. By the look on their ugly muggs anyway they clearly would rather have been anywhere else.

Expand full comment
Reply
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Aaron Rupar
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing