Jeffrey Clark and mass resignation at the DOJ

So, Trump was considering installing Jeffrey Clark as acting Attorney General. He backed off when several high ranking officials threatened to resign if he did.

Why did he care if they resigned? Why didn’t he just tell them to go ahead and resign and make Clark the Attorney General?

AIUI, it wasn’t just several high-ranking officials. It was practically the whole damn DOJ.

Perhaps so but to DJT wouldn’t that be a plus? The whole DOJ resigns except Clark and then he gets to fill the DOJ with toadies. Seems like a win-win from the evil point of view.

To take some terms for D&D, there were probably enough Lawful Evil people in his inner circle to convince him that going all out Chaotic Evil was a bad thing because in the end they would probably be at personal risk. The pressure from those people was apparently strong enough to keep him from going that route.

That would take time to accomplish, and he was busy trying to convince everyone that he won the election and didn’t have the resources to do so. You actually need people to get anything done.

Also, if the resignations go far enough down the ladder, people have to be replaced by hiring other people, with a proper hiring procedure, not by appointing people.

STEVEN ENGEL: Yeah. No, I — I think when the president — my recollection is that when the president turned to me and said, Steve, you wouldn’t leave, would you, I said, Mr. President, I’ve been with you through four attorneys general, including two acting as attorney general, but I couldn’t be part of this. And then the other thing that I said was that, you know, look, all anyone is going to sort of think about when they see this — no one is going to read this letter.

All anyone is going to think is that you went through two attorneys general in two weeks until you found the environmental guy to sign this thing. And so, the story is not going to be that the Department of Justice has found massive corruption that would have changed the result of the election. It’s going to be the disaster of Jeff Clark.

And I think at that point Pat Cipollone said, yeah, this is a murder suicide pact, this letter.

Transcript from the fifth Jan. 6 committee hearing on its investigation

There’s a bunch of stuff on this exact topic in the transcript of the 5th hearing, but the above quote is the meat of it. Engel, Donoghue, Herschmann, and Cipollone (I may be missing someone) convinced Trump that appointing Jeff Clark as AG would harm Trump more than it would help him.

They ripped Clark to shreds in front of Trump. Made him look weak. This is the kind of argument that Trump responds to. He hates the appearance of weakness and no longer wanted weak Jeff Clark to be his AG.

Another quote:

RICHARD DONOGHUE: I made the point that Jeff Clark is not even competent to serve as the Attorney General. He’s never been a criminal attorney. He’s never conducted a criminal investigation in his life. He’s never been in front of a jury, much less a trial jury. And he kind of retorted by saying, well, I’ve done a lot of very complicated appeals in civil litigation, environmental litigation, and things like that.

And I said, that’s right. You’re an environmental lawyer, how about you go back to your office and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill. And Pat Cipollone weighed in at one point. I remember saying, you know, that letter that this guy wants to send, that letter is a murder suicide pact. It’s going to damage everyone who touches it. And we should have nothing to do with that letter.

“You’re an environmental lawyer, how about you go back to your office and we’ll call you when there’s an oil spill,” is one of my favorites.

And it’s exactly the kind of dig that would get through to Trump. Big “This guy is a loser” vibe, and Trump hates anyone that he thinks is a loser.

Exactly. He wanted an AG who could be his attack dog. His Roy Cohn. When those guys threatened to quit, Trump probably didn’t care too much. When they made Jeff Clark look like a weak loser is when he decided not to pursue that particular plan.

Former Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark fights to save law license as disciplinary trial begins - POLITICO

this is happening.

“To use the authority of the Department of Justice to overturn the election, based on a lie, with no concerns that the department had no evidence of fraud that affected the election — and Mr. Clark didn’t have any evidence either — what Mr. Clark was attempting to do was essentially a coup at the Department of Justice,” said Hamilton P. “Phil” Fox III, lead prosecuting attorney for the D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel.

Clark’s attorney at Tuesday’s hearing repeatedly pointed out that the letter was never sent and that Clark should be protected from discipline because of attorney-client confidentiality.

“The evidence in this case is going to show that Mr. Clark at all times tried to do the right thing,” lawyer Harry MacDougald said. “He did not violate any rule of professional conduct and certainly not the ones charged in this case.” MacDougald also argued that the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary office has never charged a lawyer with “attempted dishonesty” for a draft letter that was never sent.

An unrelated but other good example would be Trump’s decision to hire John Bolton. For as much as Trump might not have any real policy objectives that can’t take second place to building popularity, there’s not anyone more to opposite of Trump on policy than Bolton and less likely to buy into any of Trump’s BS than him.

But, Bolton looks like a strong and bold pick…so Trump picked him and it worked out about as well as you would think.

Yeah, donald was all about appearances.

Bolton’s mustache is too long at the sides I guess?

Not quite long enough - nothing to twirl.