Aides said the hearing would also address discussions in the White House on the appointment of a special adviser to investigate Trump’s allegations of voter fraud that emerged at a heated meeting in the Oval Office in December 2020 with Sidney Powell and the first councilor. of Trump on national security, Michael Flynn.
Trump’s pressure began a tumultuous period in the Justice Department before January 6, 2021, when the then president was considering replacing Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, then chief attorney in the energy department, who pushed Trump’s fraud lawsuits into the justice department.
Justice Department officials, along with lawyers in the White House office, attended a dramatic meeting on January 3, 2021, in the Oval Office with Clark and Rosen, where Trump eventually abandoned his plan to appoint Clark as head of the Ministry of Justice – after Rosen, Donohue and Engel threatened to resign in protest.
According to a copy of his written statement, which he will make at Thursday’s hearing, Rosen will confirm that the Ministry of Justice has not received any evidence of widespread voter fraud.
“Some have told the former president and the public that the election was corrupt and stolen. “That view was wrong then and it is wrong today, and I hope our presence here today will help confirm that fact,” Rosen said.
Thursday’s hearing is the fifth the commission is holding this month, revealing the findings of its investigation, building on previous sessions that focused on other aspects of Trump’s pressure campaign. Probably the last hearing of the month, with the last hearing postponed to July.
The timetable is still fluid and subject to change, but the committee’s current goal is a round of hearings in July, committee chairman-elect Benny Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat congressman, told reporters on Wednesday.
Clark will be the main focus
The last two hearings of the commission on the campaign against then-Vice President Mike Pence and officials in the state election often referred to the efforts of Trump’s lawyer John Eastman, who played a key role in theories about how Trump can replace or reject won presidential voters. by Joe Biden.
On Thursday, Clark’s behind-the-scenes efforts to help Trump’s campaign undermine the election are likely to be the main focus.
Commission officials said the hearing would focus on Clark’s role in the Justice Department, passing on Trump’s false allegations of fraud. Clark planned to “overturn the department’s investigative findings on election fraud,” according to commission aides, and wanted to send letters to states alleging fraud.
His pressure was quickly rejected by Rosen and Donohue, which led to a dispute in the Oval Office, where Trump was considering putting Clark at the head of the department.
While acting chief of civil affairs at the Justice Department at the end of Trump’s presidency, Clark announced plans to support Georgia’s and other states’ legislatures to undermine the results of the popular vote. According to documents from the Ministry of Justice, he trusted the unfounded conspiracy theories about voter fraud and communicated with Trump about becoming chief prosecutor, a Senate investigation found this month.
The extent of Clark’s talks with Trump in the days before Jan. 6 is not yet publicly known.
Clark appeared before the testimony committee in February and pleaded for Petty, according to aides.
The chaos in the Ministry of Justice has been addressed before
Last year, the Senate Judiciary Commission published an extensive report detailing how Trump tried to use the Justice Department to speed up his efforts to cancel the 2020 election. The Senate investigation includes interviews with Justice Department witnesses. who will testify publicly on Thursday.
Assistants on January 6 said the committee’s investigation answered a different set of questions from the Senate inquiry, noting that in each of the committee’s previous hearings there were some parts of the story that were known and some unknown.
The commission, for example, was provided with text messages showing how former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was linked to Clark through Pennsylvania Republican spokesman Scott Perry, CNN reported earlier. additional control, along with Pennsylvania Republican Doug Mastriano – now the Republican nominee for governor – and Trump’s legal adviser Cletha Mitchell.
“As the events of January 6 are outside the immediate scope of the commission’s investigation, this report is being submitted to the election commission of the House of Representatives for the January 6 attack, as well as to the public to support their investigation,” the court said. The Senate. wrote.
In addition to providing new details on how Perry was related to Trump and Clark, text messages provided by Meadows and court documents helped the House committee fill significant gaps in the key role the little-known Republican congressman played in almost every step in plans to cancel or postpone the certification of elections in 2020.
Kinzinger will lead the hearing on Thursday
Representative Adam Kinsinger, a Illinois Republican, will be the member of the committee that conducts most of the interrogations during Thursday’s hearing, which focused on the Department of Justice.
This could mean that the commission will provide more information on what it sees as evidence for Republican lawmakers seeking pardon from the Justice Department, including Perry.
The Commission raised the pardons at its opening. Perry then denied asking for clemency, calling it an “absolutely shameless and soulless lie.”
On CBS’s Face the Nation earlier this month, Kinzinger said more information about the pardons would come out at a hearing he would lead.
Asked about Perry’s denial, Kinzinger said: “I don’t want to put my hand on this. We will give what we have to export. But we will not make accusations or say things without evidence or proof. then. “
The former White House adviser remains in question
Along with Justice Department leaders, then-White House adviser Pat Chipolone played a significant role in thwarting Trump’s efforts to put a loyalist at the helm of the Justice Department – and he joined their threats to resign.
However, Chipolone did not testify at Thursday’s hearing, and it is unclear whether he will do so at the committee’s hearings.
Thompson said he hoped Chipolone would testify at a public hearing, “but you know, it can happen, it can’t.”
Asked if the commission had video testimony of Chipolone to play during the hearing in case he refused to testify publicly, Thompson said: “I will keep this for later.”
At Tuesday’s hearing, the deputy chairman of the commission, Republican Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming, called Chipolon, saying the commission was working to secure his testimony.
“The American people have not yet heard from Mr. Trump’s former White House adviser, Pat Chipolon. Our committee is sure that Donald Trump does not want Mr. Chipolon to testify here. In fact, our evidence shows that Mr Chipolon and his office have tried to do what is right. They tried to stop a number of President Trump’s plans for January 6. “Cheney said. . “
However, Cipollone objected to giving public testimony, believing he had cooperated enough with the commission by participating in a closed-door interview, CNN reported on Tuesday.
The schedule of hearings remains in progress
Thursday’s hearing was originally scheduled to take place last Wednesday, but the commission postponed it the day before.
The commission initially said it would hold all its hearings in June, but now the schedule is likely to be postponed until July.
There are at least two more hearings Thursday after the commission, one focusing on extremists who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 and the other on what Trump did and did not do in response to the attack.
But after the committee received new information, the aides declined to say on Wednesday whether these would be the only remaining hearings or when, adding that the timing of the hearings was determined by the investigation.
In fact, committee members said they needed more time to review new documentaries that the panel received from documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who has never seen footage of Trump and his family. Thompson said he reviewed some of the footage and described it as “important.”
“There’s been a flood of new evidence since we started,” Commissioner Jamie Ruskin, a Democrat from Maryland, said Wednesday. “And we just have to take a breath, go through the new evidence, and then include it in the hearings.”
Evan Perez and Brian Rocus of CNN contributed to this report.
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