Thursday 23 June 2022 11:21 PM 'The president said what do I have to lose?' Justice officials describe heated ... trends now

Senior Justice Department officials Thursday described a heated White House meeting days before the January 6 attack on the Capitol, when President Donald Trump considered installing a loyalist as acting attorney general as part of his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

'Early on, the president said: "What do I have to lose?"' according to Richard Donoghue, former acting deputy attorney general.

He was one of three former Department of Justice officials who appeared before the House committee investigating the January 6 violence.

They presented evidence of the way Trump tried to use the department to pressure key wing states into reversing Joe Biden's victory.

At its heart was a plan to install Jeffrey Clark, an environmental lawyer and Trump loyalist, as the head of the department. 

The matter was discussed during a tense January 3 meeting in the Oval Office, when the president asked what he had to lose.

'And it was actually a good opening because I said, Mr. President, you have a great deal to lose,' said Donoghue.

'And I began to explain to him what he had to lose and what the country had to lose and what the department had to lose. And this was not in anyone's best interest.'

He was one of three Trump-era Justice Department officials who described a relentless pressure campaign by the president, who directed them to investigate unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud.

They said it was a deep breach of protocol for the president to deliver orders to a department that prides itself on its independence.

Instead, Trump wanted his own man at the head of the department.

Donoghue said Clark was simply 'incompetent. 

'And it was a heated conversation,' he said. I thought it was useful to point out to the president that Jeff Clark simply didn't have the skills, the ability and the experience to run the department. 

'And so I said, Mr. President, you're talking about putting a man in that seat who has never tried a criminal case, who's never conducted a criminal investigation. 

He's telling you that he's going to take charge of the department 115,000 employees, including the entire FBI, and turn the place on a dime and conduct nationwide criminal investigations and will produce results in a matter of days.

'It's impossible. It's absurd, it's not going to happen and it's going to fail.'

In a further twist, it emerged earlier in the day that Clark's suburban Virginia home had been raided by federal investigators on Wednesday. 

The panel's hearing was the fifth this month by the House committee investigating the run-up to the insurrection at the Capitol, when Trump loyalists stormed the building as lawmakers were certifying the results of the election won by Biden. 

Witnesses have included police officers attacked at the Capitol as well as lawyers, a television executive and local election officials who all resisted demands to alter results in Trump's favor.

The committee last week presented videotaped depositions of former Attorney General William Barr, who castigated Trump's fraud claims and resigned after failing to convince the president.