the President, I reluctantly think it's probably better that he's heard from Director Ratcliffe than that he not, even if—I don't think he should brief the President. But, at this point, he’s telling me that this is happening whether I agree with it or not. So, so I let him have that briefing."[303]
After Clark received the ODNI briefing, "he acknowledged [to Donoghue] that there was nothing in that briefing that would have supported his earlier suspicion about foreign involvement."[304] While Clark then dropped his claims about foreign interference, he continued to press to send the letter to Georgia and other States, despite being told that the Department of Justice investigations had found no fraud sufficient to overturn the election outcome in Georgia or any other States. This was an intentional choice by Jeff Clark to contradict specific Department findings on election fraud, and purposely insert the Department into the Presidential election on President Trump's behalf and risk creating or exacerbating a constitutional crisis.
By this point, President Trump recognized that neither Rosen nor Donoghue would sign the letter or support his false election claims. President Trump and his team then communicated further with Clark and offered him the job of Acting Attorney General. On January 2nd, Clark told Rosen that he "would turn down the President's offer if [Rosen] reversed [his] position and signed the letter" that he and Klukowski had drafted.[305] The next day, Clark decided to accept and informed Rosen, who then called White House Counsel to seek a meeting directly with President Trump. As Rosen put it, "I wasn't going to accept being fired by my subordinate, so I wanted to talk to the President directly."[306]
On January 3rd, that meeting was convened. Although contemporaneous White House documents suggest that Clark had already been appointed as the Acting Attorney General,[307] all the participants in the meeting other than Clark and President Trump aggressively opposed Clark's appointment.
At that point, Rosen decided to "broaden the circle" and ask that his subordinates inform all the other Assistant Attorneys General (AAGs) what was afoot.[308] Rosen wanted to know how the AAGs would respond if Jeff Clark was installed as the Acting Attorney General. Pat Hovakimian, who worked for Rosen, then set up a conference call. The AAGs almost immediately agreed that they would resign if Rosen was removed from office.[309]
Rosen, Donoghue, and Steve Engel, the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, attended the meeting. White House lawyers Pat Cipollone, Eric Herschmann and Pat Philbin joined as well.
When the meeting started, Clark attempted to defend his appointment. Clark declared that this was the "last opportunity to sort of set things straight with this defective election," and he had the "intelligence," the "will," and "desire" to "pursue these matters in the way that the President
