If Donald Trump knew six years ago what he knows now, he probably wouldn't have made derisive comments about those who asserted their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. "The mob takes the Fifth Amendment," the then-candidate said in 2016. "If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?"
Little did he know at the time how significant this rhetorical question would become.
Circling back to our earlier coverage, we learned a few weeks ago, for example, that when Eric Trump faced questions about the Trump Organization's business practices, he invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to more than 500 questions. When Jeffrey Clark spoke to the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack yesterday, he didn't plead the Fifth quite as often, though he apparently reached triple digits. CNN reported overnight:
Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark ... pleaded the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during his deposition with the House January 6 committee on Wednesday, a source familiar with the interview told CNN. The source said Clark chose to plead the Fifth to "most" of the questions the committee asked. The former DOJ official was in the interview room with investigators for an hour and 40 minutes. Typical interviews with key witnesses have gone on for six to eight hours.
CNN's report has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.
Clark may not be a household name, but when it comes to understanding the Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, few witnesses are as important.
For those who may need a refresher, in late 2020, Clark was the acting head of the Justice Department's civil division. Trump, however, had a different role in mind for him: The then-president considered a plan in which he'd fire the acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, and replace him with Clark as part of a scheme to intensify the Justice Department's anti-election efforts.
Trump was prepared to do this because Clark, unlike Rosen, was telling the then-president what he wanted to hear about keeping him in power, despite his defeat. Indeed, Clark even sketched out a map for Republican legislators to follow as part of the partisan plot.
Trump ultimately backed away from the plan to make Clark the acting A.G., not because the plan was stark raving mad — though it certainly was — but because the Justice Department's senior leadership team threatened to resign en masse if Rosen was ousted. Trump decided such tumult would "eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud."
This wasn't just some random thought experiment. The New York Times reported last year that there was a "bizarre" presidential meeting in January 2021 in which Rosen and Clark made competing presentations, which "officials compared with an episode of Mr. Trump's reality show 'The Apprentice,' albeit one that could prompt a constitutional crisis."
Not surprisingly, the bipartisan House committee investigating Jan. 6 came up with a few questions for Clark. Their first interaction didn't go especially well: Investigators sat down with the Republican lawyer in November, but according to the panel, he was not cooperative. In fact, Clark reportedly asserted attorney-client privilege, despite the fact that Trump was never Clark's client.
Yesterday was the second conversation. It apparently didn't go well either.
Stepping back, there are a couple of broader angles to keep in mind at this point. The first is that Clark has quite a bit of company:
John Eastman, who allegedly played a direct role in trying to pressure states not to send Democratic electors, even after the Democratic ticket won those states, also reportedly pleaded the Fifth — by some accounts, nearly 150 times.
Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser and GOP operative, said two weeks later that he also pleaded the Fifth.
Alex Jones, by his own admission, pleaded the Fifth nearly 100 times when he sat down with congressional investigators.
And now Jeffrey Clark has apparently done the same thing. What was it that Trump said about "the mob" taking the Fifth Amendment?
As for what's next, California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic member of the Jan. 6 committee, told CNN last night that Clark's deposition was "very disappointing," and as a result, "one of the options the committee needs to look at is whether we provide use immunity to Mr. Clark."
The congresswoman added, "What that means is that the testimony you give to the committee could not be used in a criminal case. If the Justice Department finds out about it some other way, they are not precluded from proceeding. We have not made that decision, but we are sorting through those issues right now to see whether that is an appropriate step to take."
Watch this space.
