Progressive group urges DOJ to investigate ex-Trump Justice official

A watchdog group on Friday called on the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate a former Trump administration official who reportedly explored ways to undermine the results of the 2020 election.

The progressive nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling on him to investigate whether former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark committed a federal crime by conspiring with former President Trump and other officials to find ways to use the DOJ to attack the integrity of the election results in states that Trump lost.

“Jeffrey Clark appears to have taken significant actions to further Donald Trump’s and Mark Meadows’s attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election, a campaign which fundamentally undercut the principles of democratic elections and peaceful transition of power upon which our constitutional system is based,” CREW President Noah Bookbinder said in a statement.

A DOJ spokesman did not immediately respond when asked for comment. Clark could not immediately be reached for comment.

According to news reports, Clark, who was acting head of the DOJ’s civil division in late 2020, was pushing for other top officials to have states investigate baseless claims of voter fraud. Trump had reportedly pushed to install Clark as the acting attorney general following William Barr’s departure in December 2020, but was ultimately dissuaded.

Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff at the time, had also been pressuring the DOJ to take action to undermine election results as Trump and his allies were pushing unfounded claims that the election had been stolen from him through widespread voter fraud, The New York Times reported in June. 

CREW said in its letter that if the media reports are true, it could be evidence that Clark, Trump, Meadows and others engaged in a criminal conspiracy to deprive citizens of their voting rights.

“Given that this amounted to an effort to undercut the principles of democratic elections and peaceful transition of power on which our constitutional system is based, it is impossible to overstate the seriousness of these potential offenses,” the letter reads.