Former DOJ official cooperating with department’s probe into Trump pressure campaign: reports

A former Trump administration Department of Justice (DOJ) official who worked closely with Jeffrey Clark is cooperating with his former employer’s investigation into the former president’s pressure campaign at the DOJ, according to multiple reports.

“We’ve been fully cooperating both with the Department of Justice and the Select Committee, and we’ll continue with that cooperation,” Edward Greim, an attorney for Ken Klukowski, said to CNN. 

Klukowski came to work at the DOJ just 36 days before the end of former President Trump’s term, joining the staff of Clark, an assistant attorney general who Trump later weighed installing as attorney general so that he could forward an investigation into the former president’s baseless claims of election fraud.

The move comes after the DOJ has executed warrants on both Clark and John Eastman, a Trump campaign attorney who advocated for former Vice President Mike Pence to buck his ceremonial duty to certify the election results.

In a prior hearing, the House committee investigating that Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol claimed Klukowski had been working with Eastman prior to joining the department and showed evidence suggesting their relationship continued while Klukowski was working under Clark.

Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) presented a Dec. 28 email from Trump ally Ken Blackwell requesting that Pence receive a briefing from Klukowski and Eastman and warning “to make sure we don’t over expose Ken given his new position.”

“This email suggests that Mr. Klukowski was simultaneously working with Jeffrey Clark to draft the proposed letter to Georgia officials to overturn their certified election and working with Dr. Eastman to help pressure the Vice President to overturn the election,” Cheney said.

Klukowski has denied that characterization.

“The Jan. 6 committee falsely accused me on Thursday of being a go-between in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election,” he said in a statement shortly after that hearing. 

“That accusation is false both in its broad outlines and its details. Since the Committee first contacted me, I have cooperated without hesitation, provided it with hundreds of documents, and sat for many hours of recorded depositions.”