Federal authorities have descended on the home of a former Department of Justice official who pushed ex-President ’s false claims of election fraud.
Investigators searched Jeffrey Clark’s suburban Virginia home on Wednesday, sources told on Thursday afternoon.
Clark was central in Trump’s effort to try to get the Justice Department to claim that there was sufficient voter fraud in Georgia and other states to cast doubt on winning the presidency.
Serving as the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division, Clark in December 2020 assisted in drafting a letter to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp stating that the department found ‘significant concerns’ around the ‘outcome of the election’ in several states. The letter was not backed up by evidence.
The letter urged Kemp to call a Georgia state legislature special session to form ‘a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J Trump’.
It was not immediately clear what the investigators may be looking for.
The search occurred the day before the fifth public hearing by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot. The hearing focused on Trump’s moves pressuring the Justice Department to help him overturn the election results.
Clark’s role in, and steps he took in helping Trump’s effort, were expected to be a topic in the Thursday afternoon hearing.
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC, confirmed to that ‘there was law enforcement activity in the vicinity’ of Clark’s home, declining to comment further.
Clark and his lawyers did not immediately comment.
But Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official and president of the Center for Renewing America where Clark is a senior fellow, that ‘more than a dozen DOJ law enforcement officials searched Jeff Clark’s house in a pre-dawn raid, put him in the streets in his pajamas, and took his electronic devices’.
‘All because Jeff saw fit to investigate voter fraud,’ Vought . ‘This is not America, folks. The weaponization of govt must end. Let me be very clear. We stand by Jeff and so must all patriots in this country.’
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