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Jan. 6 House committee subpoenas former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark

The House committee investigating the Capitol riots subpoenaed former Justice Department official Jeffery Clark on Wednesday stating he aided efforts to stop the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election. File Photo by Yuri Gripas/EPA-EFE
The House committee investigating the Capitol riots subpoenaed former Justice Department official Jeffery Clark on Wednesday stating he aided efforts to stop the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election. File Photo by Yuri Gripas/EPA-EFE

Oct. 13 (UPI) -- The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday subpoenaed former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark.

In a statement Wednesday, Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said a Senate judiciary committee report released last week said that Clark, an ally of former President Donald Trump, was involved in efforts to "interrupt the peaceful transfer of power" following the 2020 presidential election.

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"The select committee needs to understand all the details about efforts inside the previous administration to delay the certification of the 2020 election and amplify misinformation about the election results," Thompson said. "We need to understand Mr. Clark's role in these efforts at the Justice Department and learn who was involved across the administration."

Thompson cited a report released by the Senate judiciary committee last week which stated Clark proposed delivering a letter to state legislators in Georgia and other states to encourage them to delay the certification of their election results.

He also recommended that the legislators hold a press conference announcing the Justice Department was investigating allegations of voter fraud.

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"These proposals were rejected by department leadership as both lacking a factual basis and inconsistent with the department's institutional role," the subpoena states.

The subpoena also notes that Trump considered installing Clark as acting attorney general in place of Jeffrey Rosen, who headed the Justice Department at the time, but ultimately chose not to after some agency employees threatened to resign.

"While he did not ultimately make that personnel change, your efforts risked involving the Department of Justice in actions that lacked evidentiary foundation and threatened to subvert the rule of law," the subpoena states.

The subpoena comes as Trump lat week instructed a group of former aides including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications Daniel Scavino, former Defense Department official Kashyap Patel and former adviser Stephen Bannon to defy subpoenas from the committee.

Donald Trump supporters breach Capitol, riot over election results

Supporters of President Donald Trump riot against the Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021, in protest of Trump's loss to President-elect Joe Biden, prompting a lockdown of the Capitol Building. Photo by Leigh Vogel/UPI | License Photo

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