According to multiple sources, federal agents searched the home of former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark. Clark is a key official in the House committee investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, known as a champion of former President Donald Trump’s election fraud claims during Clark’s time with the department.
The Associated Press confirmed the Clark home search via a person who was not authorized to discuss it by name and spoke on condition of anonymity. It was also confirmed on Twitter by Russ Vought, the former Office of Management and Budget Director under former President Trump.
“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 PJs, and took his electronic devices,” Vought tweeted Thursday afternoon. The reason for the search wasn’t immediately clear.
Based on Vought’s timeline, the federal agents’ search of Clark’s home came just a day after Clark’s activities at the department were one of the focuses of Thursday’s House committee hearing investigating the riot.
“Jeff Clark met privately with President Trump and others in the White House and agreed to assist the president without telling the senior leadership of the department who oversaw him,” Jan. 6 Committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said. “The Department of Justice had already informed the president of the United States, repeatedly, that its investigations had found no fraud sufficient to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”
On Thursday, three department officials testified about an oval office meeting on Jan. 3, 2021. At that meeting, Trump contemplated naming Clark as acting attorney general in place of Jeffrey Rosen, who resisted Trump’s efforts to involve the agency.
“The President said ‘suppose I do this, suppose I replace him, Jeff Rosen, with him, Jeff Clark. What do you do?’ And I said, ‘Sir, I would resign immediately. There is no way I’m serving one minute under this guy, Jeff Clark.'” former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue said in an interview with the committee that was revealed at Tuesday’s hearing.
Clark already met with the committee back in February, two months after the committee recommended contempt charges against him. However, he pleaded the fifth over 100 times during a two-hour deposition.