Donoghue took notes during his conversation with Representative Perry and provided those notes to the Select Committee.[169] The notes reflect that when Representative Perry called Donoghue on December 27th, Representative Perry explained that President Trump asked him to call and that he, Representative Perry, did not think DOJ had been doing its job on the election.[170] Representative Perry brought up other, unrelated matters and argued that the "FBI doesn't always do the right thing in all instances."[171] Representative Perry also brought up Jeff Clark. He said he liked him and thought that Clark "would do something about this," meaning the election fraud allegations.[172]
On the evening of December 27th, Representative Perry emailed Donoghue a set of documents alleging significant voting fraud had occurred in Pennsylvania.[173] One document asserted that election authorities had counted 205,000 more votes than had been cast.[174] Representative Perry also shared this same claim on Twitter the following day.[175] President Trump kept raising the same claim. Sometimes there was an alleged discrepancy of 205,000 votes, other times it was supposedly 250,000 votes.[176] Either way, it was not true.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Donoghue forwarded Representative Perry's email to Scott Brady, who was the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania at the time.[177] As Brady soon discovered, there was no discrepancy.[178] President Trump's supporters came up with the claim by comparing the Pennsylvania Secretary of State's website, which reported the total number of votes as 5.25 million, to a separate State election registry, which showed only 5 million votes cast.[179] The problem was simple: Pennsylvania's election site had not been updated.[180] The totals for four counties had not yet been reported on the election site. Once those votes were counted on the site, the totals matched. This was simply not an example of fraud, as President Trump, Representative Perry and others would have it.
4.9 DECEMBER 28, 2020: THE CLARK LETTER
On December 28, 2020, Clark sent a 5-page draft letter to Donoghue and Rosen.[181] The letter was addressed to three Georgia State officials: Governor Brian Kemp, Speaker of the House David Ralston, and President Pro Tempore of the Senate Butch Miller. It contained places for Rosen and Donoghue to affix their signatures, which they steadfastly refused to do.[182] The letter, if signed and sent, may very well have provoked a constitutional crisis.[183]
The letter was attached to an email from Clark, in which he requested authorization to attend a classified briefing by the Office of the Director of
