# Transcribed Interview of Richard Peter Donoghue, (Oct. 1, 2021)/1:48pm

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​[1:48 p.m.]
Well, let's go back on the record then.
I'll note that we are now joined who is the chief counsel and deputy staff director from the select committee, is here.
I see Ms. Cheney is back, from the select committee, as well. And I believe she's the only member who's currently here. And I'll let you know if other members do join as we proceed.
    BY
Q So, Mr. Donoghue, I just have a couple more areas to cover with you before I turn it over to to talk about the January 6th events. I want to talk about two more White House meetings, one that occurred on December the 31st.
And I know we're stepping back a bit from all those emails that you received from Mr. Meadows, but there are a series of photographs that are in your binder at tab 26. If you could just take a look at those.
And they seem to show you and some others in an Oval Office meeting that I believe happened on December 31st. Do you recall that meeting?
A I do. And I have the photos.
Q All right. Can you just tell us in the photos who is who, just sort of going around from the left, all the way around the table, around the President?
A So, to the far left, facing the President, is White House Deputy Counsel Pat Philbin, P-h-i-l-b-i-n. To Pat's right is me. To my right is the Acting Attorney General, Jeff Rosen. To his right is the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. And at the far end of the half-circle there is White House Counsel Pat Cipollone. And, of course, behind the desk is the President.
​Q Do you remember how it is that this meeting came together? What was the subject matter? What did you expect in advance?
A This was relatively short notice. I think the President was in Florida for Christmas, and we had expected him to stay there through the New Year, but he came back on the 31st. And I think shortly after Air Force One landed, the Acting Attorney General was advised that we were required—requested to go to the White House. So he and I headed over to the White House sometime mid-afternoon.
Q Did you have any idea, Mr. Donoghue, on your way what the subject matter was? Or, if you didn't know for sure, did you have a suspicion as to what it was he wanted to talk about?
A I expected he wanted to talk about election matters. I don't know if we were specifically told that or not.
Q Okay.
So tell us about the meeting. First of all, start with the President's state of mind or mood. What was it like during the meeting?
A The President was a little more agitated than he had been in the meeting on the 15th. He discussed a variety of election matters. And, again, this was sort of in keeping with what we had discussed previously, where he would say, are you guys aware of this allegation or that allegation, and we would essentially say, yes, we're aware of that, thank you.
But he certainly was adamant that the election had been stolen, that he won, that the American people were being harmed by fraud, and that he believed the Justice Department should be doing something about it.
Q You did not take notes during this meeting. Is there a reason for that?
A I did not take notes, no—I never took notes in the Oval Office—in part ​because there was nothing new here. There was nothing that he was bringing up that we hadn't previously been aware of. If we had, you know, perhaps I would've taken out a pen and paper, but that was just not the situation.
Q Did the President or anyone else in the White House ever tell you that you should not take notes when you were in meetings with him or in the Oval Office?
A No, there were no instructions along those lines.
Q All right.
Did the President, during this meeting, talk again about Jeff Clark or the possibility of a leadership change at the Department?
A He did at the end. He reiterated that people were advising him to remove both DAG Rosen and me. And we just repeated what we had said previously, that if you're uncomfortable with your leadership, you should have the leaders that you want, but it's really not going to change anything.
Q All right.
Was there any discussion of the Supreme Court complaint and the OLC opinion about standing? Do you know whether that specifically came up?
A Yes, that definitely came up.
Q All right. And tell us again, quickly, what the discussion was with respect to the President and his understanding of the standing issue.
A So the President brought up again that some of these cases—in his view, virtually all the cases were being dismissed on standing grounds and that if the Department brought a case it would not be dismissed on standing grounds, because the Department represents the American people, and the American people had standing because they were being harmed by corrupt or defective elections.
And so we tried to explain to him that, in fact, the Department does not have ​standing. We had asked OLC and the Office of the Solicitor General to take a look at that. They had done the analysis and that, in their view, we did not have standing. Because we really don't represent the American people directly; we represent the Federal Government. And the Federal Government does not have standing to challenge the way a State conducts its own elections.
He could not understand that. He was very animated, saying, you know—I recall him saying over and over, "How is that possible? How can that possibly be?" And, again, from a layman's point of view, I understand his perspective, but we tried to explain it to him, that as a legal matter we couldn't bring it.
Q Was there discussion during this meeting, Mr. Donoghue, about the possibility of his appointment of a special counsel to investigate allegations of election fraud?
A He did mention appointment of a special counsel in at least one of the meetings. I'm pretty sure it was this one. It might've been both. It might've been mentioned in passing on the 15th, but I don't specifically remember that.
He did say, "This sounds like the kind of thing that would warrant appointment of a special counsel." He didn't say, "I'm directing you to appoint a special counsel." He did not say, "If you don't, I will," or anything like that. But he certainly was making the suggestion that it was clearly something he was interested in having us do.
Q Uh-huh. Did he mention any potential people inside or outside the administration who could serve that role?
A I do recall at one point he said, "I think Ken Cuccinelli would make an excellent special counsel." And Ken Cuccinelli was not there when that comment was made, and that's why I think that comment was made on the 31st, because Ken was not at that meeting.
​Q Okay.
And, Mr. Donoghue, what was your and Mr. Rosen's response to the whole notion of a special counsel, the appointment of a special counsel? When he said, this seems like the kind of thing that would merit that, what was your response?
A On that, we didn't say a lot, but I think it was essentially left to, well, if we don't see evidence supporting these individual allegations, then there's no evidence that would warrant appointing a special counsel.
Q Yeah.
All right. Anything else about that meeting that sticks out in your mind now as noteworthy?
A We definitely talked about Antrim County again. That was sort of done at that point, because the hand recount had been done and all of that. But we cited back to that to say, you know, this is an example of what people are telling you and what's being filed in some of these court filings that are just not supported by evidence. And this is the problem; the problem is, people keep telling you these things and they turn out not to be true. So I remember we talked about Antrim County again.
There was a point at which the President said something about, "Why don't you guys seize machines?" And I don't remember if this was in relation to a specific jurisdiction or not, but, you know, "You guys should seize machines because there will be evidence there," something to that effect.
And Acting AG Rosen said, no, we don't seize machines. We can't just go in and take machines from State authorities. It doesn't work that way. You know, you seize evidence pursuant to search warrants, and we're nowhere in a position to seek a search warrant, so we can't just go in and seize machines.
And the President asked something to the effect of, doesn't the Federal ​overnment have some oversight responsibility, or something like that. And DAG Rosen said, no, we don't. The States conduct the elections. And to the extent that the Federal Government is involved, it's DHS providing assistance to the States, support for things like software selection and quality control and things like that.
And, at that point, he got Ken Cuccinelli on the phone—the President had one of his support staff get Ken Cuccinelli on the phone. And the President said something to the effect of, "Ken, the Acting Attorney General is telling me it's your job to seize machines," which is not what the Acting Attorney General had said.
And then Ken responded and said, no, Mr. President, that's not the way it works. We provide support, et cetera.
Q Uh-huh.
A And then he hung up the phone, and that was it.
Q Yeah.
You mentioned, Mr. Donoghue, that the President was more animated, continued to talk about the election being stolen. Did anyone else in the meeting express similar perspectives or seem similarly exercised about the allegations of voter fraud? Or was it just the President, himself, that was expressing that frustration?
A That was just the President. I mean, the rest of us were there to hear him out and respond. And we did. And we told him that there were issues here. You know, if rules were changed along the way and things like that, maybe there's something to that, Mr. President, but that's got nothing to do with the Department. Your lawyers, through civil lawsuits, can pursue those matters, and we just have nothing to do with that. So—
Q Uh-huh. And did Mr. Meadows or Mr. Cipollone or Mr. Philbin say anything at all inconsistent with that, with what you and Mr. Rosen were telling the President in ​terms of the limited ability to develop these facts? You know, give me a sense of their participation or their message to the President during the meeting.
A I would say they were generally supportive. Pat Cipollone certainly understood the situation and was trying to reinforce our arguments.
The chief of staff is not a lawyer, so—and he was very quick throughout this process to say, "Look, I'm not a lawyer, I don't know how this stuff works, you guys will figure this out," you know, whether that was in his office on the 29th or this day. So he recognized that he had, sort of, limited input on that issue. But Pat Cipollone was supportive.
Q Got it.
All right. Let me turn your attention now to a second meeting that you have with Mr. Clark—that you and Mr. Rosen have with Mr. Clark.
Is there another contentious discussion face-to-face, Mr. Donoghue, between you, Jeff Rosen, and Jeff Clark at the SCIF on the sixth floor at the Department of Justice on January the 2nd?
A Yes. That was in the afternoon.
Q All right. Tell us, what was the impetus for calling—who called it, and what was the reason for that meeting?
A So the first meeting was on the 28th. That was Monday. This is the following Saturday. I had intended to be at the office that afternoon because we had a 1 o'clock call with DOD and other partners relating to preparation for January 6th.
I didn't know if the DAG was going to do that call from his office or from home. got in to the Justice Department probably around 12:30, quarter to 1:00, shortly before the call, and I went to the DAG's office. I saw he was there.
He said that he had spoken to Jeff Clark and that Jeff Clark told him, apparently ​earlier that day, that he had decided—that the President had offered him the Acting Attorney General position and that he had decided to take it but that he wanted to have one last conversation with Jeff Rosen before he communicated that to the President.
So we had a brief conversation about that. Then we had to break off and go into the 1 o'clock call about January 6th. That took some period of time.
When that call was done, we were still sitting in his office, and I said, so what are you going to do in terms of meeting with Jeff Clark? And he said, I am going to meet with him—hang on. I just want to make sure I'm not conflating two different days here.
Q Yeah. Take your time.
A Let me just think about this a second.
Q Uh-huh.
Mr. Andres. Was there a prior meeting with Jeff Clark before that?
Mr. Donoghue. Well, there was the 28th. I just want to make sure I had the—yeah, no, this is right. This was the 2nd. Because the only time I saw Jeff Clark on the 3rd was in the Oval Office.
So let me back it up a little bit, because I am conflating slightly here January 2nd and January 3rd.
So, when I got to the office, the DAG did tell me that he'd spoken to Jeff Clark and Jeff Clark relayed that the President offered him the position of Acting Attorney General—it was very explicit at that point—
. Yeah.
Mr. Donoghue. —and that Jeff Clark was thinking about it and he wanted to meet with DAG Rosen about it.
So, after our call with DOD and the other partners, he said he was going to have a meeting with Jeff Clark up on the sixth floor, which is our SCIF, and that he wanted me to ​attend, because he did not want to meet with Jeff Clark alone.
Yeah.
Mr. Donoghue. We went up to the SCIF. We locked up our phones outside. We went into one of the conference rooms. It was just the three of us. We had a discussion. Jeff Clark again stated that the President had offered him the position and he was thinking about what to do.
I asked him at the outset of that meeting, did you get your DNI briefing? Because I wanted to follow up and make sure that he'd gotten the things he requested and nail down what the results were. So he said, yes, that he had gotten the DNI briefing, and he acknowledged that there was nothing in that briefing that would have supported his earlier suspicion about foreign involvement.
And we then had a discussion about whether or not there were any other allegations that would warrant Department action. And basically what Jeff was saying was, despite the fact that the intelligence community did not support his suspicions, he still felt strongly that we should be sending a letter out to Georgia and the other swing States. And then we had a discussion along those lines.
    BY :
Q Yeah. There's discussion about the allegations about the trucker in Georgia and whether or not he had called the U.S. attorney down there? Is that right, Mr. Clark—I mean, Mr. Donoghue? You asked Mr. Clark about contact with Pak?
A Yes, I did.
I'm just trying to find my notes from that meeting. I think there's an exhibit here.
Q I actually don't think we have any notes from this meeting with Clark.
A I guess I—yeah, I don't see them here. I thought there were notes. ​Maybe I'm mistaken, but—
. To be clear, there is a one-page note that I do think you have for January 2nd, for this meeting.
Mr. Donoghue. I know I've seen them in my prior testimony, so—maybe they're not marked as an exhibit. But I'll go, as best I can, off my recollection here.
Yeah.
Mr. Donoghue. So we had this conversation in the SCIF. Jeff Clark says, well, despite the fact that the IC doesn't have anything that calls this into question, I still think there's a lot of fraud out there, I still think the Department should be taking action, and I still think the Department should send that letter.
And, at that point, it got very confrontational, because we were not going to send that letter.
And so the meeting went on for some time. He said something that made me think that he had again been in contact with the President. And I said, you know, you, again, have violated the White House contacts policy. I reminded him that I was his boss and that I had directed him to do otherwise.
He said that he had talked to some people on the phone, essentially interviewed witnesses over a phone, and that these people had information in Georgia and that there was testimony in the Georgia Senate hearing that raised questions about Georgia, and so on and so forth.
So he kept saying, there's so much there, there has got to be something to these allegations, we have to act now, we're running out of time, we need to send the letter. And that's the way that conversation went.
    BY :
Q Yeah. Was there any discussion of possible resignations if he became the ​Acting Attorney General, in that meeting with him on the 2nd?
A No. No.
But we concluded, and he said something to the effect of, "Well, the President has asked me to be Acting Attorney General. I told him I would give him a response on Monday. I'm going to think about what I'm going to do, and I'll let you," Jeff Rosen, "know."
He was also upset that I was there. Because I remember, early on, when we walked in the room, he turned to the Acting Attorney General and said, I thought it was just going to be the two of us. And the Acting AG said, "No. Rich needs to be here for this. He knows more about what's going on. And we're the leadership team, and we want to hear what you have to say."
Q Got it.
All right. And I appreciate you don't have your notes in front of you, but anything else about the conversation, Mr. Donoghue, that you recall, the conversation with Clark on the 2nd?
A It just got very heated, and it was left at that, that he would make a decision over the next day or so and let Jeff Rosen know.
Q You described the earlier meeting with Mr. Clark as you were more confrontational than Mr. Rosen, that Mr. Rosen was trying to play, I think it was your term, "peacemaker" or was trying to find some common ground.
Did he play a similar role in this meeting, or had Mr. Rosen's approach to Clark, had it changed and was it a different tone on the 2nd?
A It had certainly stiffened, but I think the overall tenor was that Jeff Rosen was deeply disappointed. He had known this guy for decades, they worked together, he respected him as an attorney, and he couldn't believe that, even after all this, even when ​we let him get the briefing, that he was still pursuing this idea that, because there were allegations out there, that was sufficient for the Department to send a letter like that.
So his demeanor was more of disappointment and, I suppose, some resignation. I was more angry, and I'm sure that was evident to everyone.
Q Yeah.
Tell me what steps you and Mr. Rosen took after the meeting. When you learned that Mr. Clark has gotten this offer, this job offer, what do you two decide to do, and what do you then—what steps do you take?
A We then went down to Jeff Rosen's office. We sat there for some time talking about, what do we do now? I think we called Steve Engel, because we wanted Steve to be updated on everything—or I called Steve on my own or something like that. But we talked about, what do we do, and is this the time to broaden the circle and let other people know what's going on here, because we could be out of the Department with virtually no notice.
And so DAG Rosen decided that, you know what? We don't know what's going to happen. Let's just sleep on this tonight. We don't need to widen the circle at this point.
Engel knew. I think Pat Hovakimian also knew at that point. And the four of us, sort of, were going to keep it to ourselves, because we didn't want to create even more issues for the Department at a time when the Department was already under tremendous stress. And so—
Q Who was Pat Hovakimian?
A Pat Hovakimian had been DAG Rosen's chief of staff when I first got to Washington in July. Pat was nominated to be the IG for the intelligence community. And so, somewhere in the fall, he was moved out of the chief of staff position because ​there was an expectation he would get confirmed and leave the Department.
The DAG moved another DOJ attorney into the chief of staff position, John Moran. And Pat stayed on the staff. And DAG Rosen valued his judgment and his insights, and so he kept him in the loop even though he was not technically the chief of staff at that point.
Q All right.
Anything else happen on January 2nd, or do you, in fact, sleep on it and reconvene in the morning on—
A Yeah.
Q —Sunday, January 3rd?
A Yeah, we left it. Nothing happened that night, and then it all resumed on Sunday.
Q Okay. Tell us about what happened on Sunday.
A Okay. So here's where I was, earlier, I think, conflating two different things, the 3rd and the 2nd. It was on the 3rd, the afternoon of the 3rd, that we had the prescheduled meeting with DOD relating to preparation for January 6th.
So I came in on the 3rd shortly before the 1:00 p.m. call. And DAG Rosen said to me that he had spoken to Jeff Clark apparently just shortly before this. Jeff Clark had told him that he had decided to accept the President's offer to serve as Acting Attorney General but that Jeff Clark wanted to have one more meeting with Jeff Rosen before he communicated that to the President. So that all happened on Sunday.
We then took the 1 o'clock call and we dealt with some of the January 6th preparation matters. When that call was over, I said to him, "So what do you want to do with Jeff Clark? Do you want to have a meeting with him? What do you want to do?" And he said, "I'm going to have a meeting with him." And I said, "Okay, fine. Do you ​want me there?" as I had been the day before. And he said, "No, I've known this guy for decades. I'll meet with him one-on-one. That's fine. I'll deal with it. And we'll take it from there."
So I went into my office. I worked on things throughout the afternoon. He came down—I think they met someplace in the building; maybe it was on the sixth floor. But he came back, he came to my office, and he said, "I met with Clark. He asked me to stay on as his DAG once he becomes the Acting Attorney General."
This clearly irritated the Acting Attorney General. He basically said, can you believe the nerve of this guy? And he said that he told him he would absolutely not remain on and that he would leave the Department.
And he said that Clark said he was going to communicate to the President probably that day that he was accepting the offer.
At that point, I said, "Well, I guess we're done," and I began taking things off the wall of my office. I had plaques hung up. I figured we were going to be out of there within hours or a day or something like that. And I took out boxes and I began packing up things, because I was going to resign as soon as Jeff Rosen was removed from the seat.
And I was packing up my office; Jeff Rosen went back to his office. And, after a short while, he came back and he said, I talked to Pat, meaning Pat Cipollone, and Pat says that, in his view, this is not a done deal and that we should go fight this out at the White House.
And he asked what I thought about that, and I said, well, certainly, if there's any shot of undoing this, we should do that. And he was of the same view. So we said, all right, let's do that, let's fight this out. And we then talked about—
Q And let me stop you there, Mr. Donoghue. When you say "we," you and Mr. Rosen are essentially aligned here, that it's the two of you together? The plan is, go ​to the White House at Pat Cipollone's invitation and fight this out, versus Mr. Clark, who was prepared to step in as Acting Attorney General?
A Yes, that's right.
Q Okay.
Before you go to the White House, do you take some steps to sort of get some internal support within the Department or gather some information from others inside the Department?
A We did. As we discussed next steps, I said to the Acting AG, you know, "What can I do to help? What do you need?" And he said, "You know, it'd be helpful to know what the AAGs would do."
He also said, "It's time to broaden the circle, because we don't know how this is going to end. And, in all likelihood, it's going to end with Jeff Clark being the Attorney General within the next few hours, so people need to know what's going on."
So he said, "Can you do a call with the AAGs and just let them know, one, what's going on so they're prepared; and, two, if they have a view as to whether or not they would take any action as a result of this, we should know that because it would help inform the conversation at the White House."
Q Right.
A Pursuant to that, Pat Hovakimian and I set up a call at, I believe, 4:45 with the AAGS. We had them call in on a conference line. We didn't get all of them, but we got most of them. And they called in. Pat and I were in Pat's office, put it on speakerphone.
I said, "I just want to read you in on some things that have been going on over the last couple days you need to know." And I explained what had been going on.
And I said, "I don't want to put anyone on the spot, and I don't need an answer ​right now, but if you have an answer, I need it quickly. We need to know what, if anything, you would do."
"I'm telling you, I will resign immediately, because I am not going to stick around for this. And the rest of you, you can make your own decision. That's fine. And we'll respect the decision no matter what it may be."
"And, John," meaning John Demers, "I hope you do not resign, because you are the NSD AAG, and we need stability, particularly if the Department leadership changes. National security is too important to have turnover, so I hope you stick around."
"But the rest of you, give it some thought, and let me or Pat know in the next few minutes if you have a decision. If you don't have a decision, that's fine. But if you do have one, let me know."
And before we could even hang up, they began chiming in. First, the Civil Rights AAG chimed in and said, don't need to think about this. I'm out. If this happens, there's no way I'm sticking around for this." And then the others, I think they all chimed in on the call. If they didn't, they called immediately after and said, "Put me on the list."
And so it was unanimous; everyone was going to resign if Jeff Rosen was removed from the seat.
Q All right.
So, after this conversation with the Assistant Attorneys General in the afternoon of Sunday, everybody agrees, Mr. Donoghue, except for Mr. Demers, who's the head of NSD, that they're going to quit if the President makes a leadership change at the top of the Department?
A Yes.
Q And did you convey that to Mr. Rosen before the two of you go to the White House?
​A Yes.
Q All right. So, when you get to the White House—or is there anything else that happens before you go over there with Mr. Rosen?
A Just one other point that's relevant.
Q Yeah.
A Apparently, there were calls back and forth. My sense was Pat Cipollone was in the middle of these different phone calls between Jeff Rosen and Jeff Clark. I don't think they talked to each other directly at this point.
Q Okay.
A A But the bottom line was, Jeff Clark said he would only agree to meet at the White House if Jeff Rosen came alone. And Jeff Rosen relayed that to me. And so, as we were getting toward the time to leave, I was again asking, "Is there anything else I can do? What do you need me to do?" And he said, "I need you to come to the White House."
And I said, "That's fine. I'll do whatever you want. But didn't Clark, sort of, lay out this condition?" And he just waved and said, "I don't care what Jeff Clark wants. I want you to come to the White House. You know these issues better than me," in terms of the election investigations.
And he said, "You know what we'll do? We'll have you wait outside the Oval. If I don't need you, you don't need to come in, but if questions arise that I can't answer, then we'll pull you in."
And we then went to the White House.
Q About what time of day is it when you get to the White House?
A 6:00 p.m.
Q All right. Do you wait outside the Oval when Mr. Rosen goes in?
​A The meeting was set for 6:15. I think we went directly to the White House Counsel's Office and talked very briefly with Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin and then had to head to the Oval Office. When we got down—
Q What was their position, Mr. Donoghue, on this possible leadership change, Mr. Cipollone and Mr. Philbin, if they were aligned?
A They were completely opposed to it.
So I think we met with them and then went to the Oval. I sat outside the Oval Office down the hallway on a couch. There was a television. And the Acting Attorney General went back to the Oval.
I was sitting on the couch. I remember that whatever news channel was on was talking about the President's call with Raffensperger in Georgia. And this was the first I'd heard of that, while I'm sitting outside the Oval. And they were playing the audio and talking about the call. And I assumed that was going to overwhelm the conversation in the Oval Office, but when I got there, no one even mentioned it. So apparently that wasn't controlling the situation.
While I was sitting on the couch, I saw General Milley walk by. And then, very shortly after that, the chief of staff walked by. He just nodded and said, "Good luck," and went on his way.
And after about 25 minutes of sitting on the couch, one of the administrative assistants walked by. She said, "Are you supposed to be in this meeting with the President?" I said, "No, I'm only here to answer questions if they come up and no one has the answer." She said, "Okay," went back, and then she came back a moment later and said, "The President wants you in this meeting." So I got up and I walked into the Oval Office.
Q And it had been going on, you think, roughly, Mr. Donoghue, 25 minutes or ​so when you joined at the President's invitation?
A That's right.
Q All right. And who was inside the meeting when you got there?
A When I entered the Oval Office, the President was behind the desk, and it was Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, a White House lawyer named Eric Herschmann, Jeff Clark, Jeff Rosen, Steve Engel, and then me.
Q Are you sure Mr. Herschmann was a White House lawyer?
A He was a lawyer who worked at the White House. I'm not—initially I thought he worked in the White House Counsel's Office, but I think later someone told me that wasn't the case. I don't remember. His role was never clear to me. I know he was a lawyer from New York. I know he had been a prosecutor at some point. But I don't know what his title exactly was. I'd seen him in some meetings previously, but I didn't know exactly what his role was.
Q Okay.
All right. And, again, no notes of this meeting. Is that right? You don't take notes—you were inside the Oval Office and, you indicated before, didn't take notes when you were in discussions inside that office.
A No.
Q All right. Well, tell us what you remember, then, about the conversation. What was the topic when you arrived, and how did it evolve from there?
A The meeting took about another 2-1/2 hours from the time I entered. It was entirely focused on whether there should be a DOJ leadership change. So the election allegations played into this, but they were more background than anything else.
And the President was basically trying to make a decision and letting everyone speak their minds. And it was a very blunt, intense conversation that took several ​hours. And Jeff Clark certainly was advocating for change in leadership that would put him at the top of the Department, and everyone else in the room was advocating against that and talking about what a disaster this would be.
Q What were Clark's purported bases for why it was in the President's interest for him to step in? What would he do, how would things change, according to Mr. Clark in the meeting?
A He repeatedly said to the President that, if he was put in the seat, he would conduct real investigations that would, in his view, uncover widespread fraud; he would send out the letter that he had drafted; and that this was a last opportunity to sort of set things straight with this defective election, and that he could do it, and he had the intelligence and the will and the desire to pursue these matters in the way that the President thought most appropriate.
Q You said everyone else in the room was against this. That's Mr. Cipollone, Mr. Philbin, Mr. Herschmann, you, and Mr. Rosen. What were the arguments that you put forth as to why it would be a bad idea for him to replace Rosen with Clark?
A So, at one point early on, the President said something to the effect of, "What do I have to lose? If I do this, what do I have to lose?" And I said, "Mr. President, you have a great deal to lose. Is this really how you want your administration to end? You're going hurt the country, you're going to hurt the Department, you're going to hurt yourself, with people grasping at straws on these desperate theories about election fraud, and is this really in anyone's best interest?"
And then other people began chiming in, and that's kind of the way the conversation went. People would talk about the downsides of doing this.
And then—and I said something to the effect of, "You're going to have a huge personnel blowout within hours, because you're going to have all kinds of problems with ​resignations and other issues, and that's not going to be in anyone's interest."
And so the President said, "Well, suppose I do this"—I was sitting directly in front of the President. Jeff Rosen was to my right; Jeff Clark was to my left. 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 1 minute under this guy," Jeff Clark.
And then the President turned to Steve Engel, and he said, "Steve, you wouldn't resign, would you?" And Steve said, "Absolutely I would, Mr. President. You'd leave me no choice."
And I said, "And we're not the only ones. You should understand that your entire Department leadership will resign. Every AAG will resign." I didn't tell him about the call or anything, but I made it clear that I knew what they were going to do.
And I said, "Mr. President, these aren't bureaucratic leftovers from another administration. You picked them. This is your leadership team. You sent every one of them to the Senate; you got them confirmed. What is that going to say about you, when we all walk out at the same time? And I don't even know what that's going to do to the U.S. attorney community. You could have mass resignations amongst your U.S. attorneys. And then it will trickle down from there; you could have resignations across the Department. And what happens if, within 48 hours, we have hundreds of resignations from your Justice Department because of your actions? What does that say about your leadership?"
So we had that part of the conversation. Steve Engel, I remember, made the point that Jeff Clark would be leading what he called a graveyard; there would be no one left. How is he going to do anything if there's no leadership really left to carry out any of these ideas?
​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 grand jury, much less a trial jury.
And he kind of retorted by saying, "Well, I've done a lot of very complicated appeals and 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 so it got very confrontational at points.
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. I don't ever want to see that letter again." And so we went along those lines.
I remember Eric Herschmann chimed in several times, saying that, whatever Jeff Clark wanted to do or thought he could do, there was no reason to think he could really do it.
I remember saying at some point that, you know, Jeff wouldn't even know how to find his way to Chris Wray's office, much less march in there and direct the FBI what to do, and that, if you walked into Chris Wray's office, he wouldn't even know who you are. So we had these conversations that went around and around and were very blunt and direct. And that went on for 2-1/2 hours.
Q At one point, did the President disparage Mr. Rosen or talk about Mr. Rosen's inaction or unwillingness to do anything about the election?
A He did say several times, "You two," pointing at Mr. Rosen and me, "You two haven't done anything. You two don't care. You haven't taken appropriate actions. Everyone tells me I should fire you," and things of that nature.
​He came back to that at the very end when he decided against a leadership change. And he announced that, and then he came back to that point and he said, "And I know that these two here, they're not going to do anything. They're not going to fix this. But that's the way it is, and I'm going to let it go anyway."
Q Did Mr. Cipollone say anything about what he would do with respect to a potential resignation if the President made this change?
A He did at some point. I guess that was on the heels of us talking about how there would be resignations in the Department. And I think Pat Cipollone said, "Well, I'm not going to stand for this, I'm not going to be here if this happens either."
Q So he said he would resign or not stand for it, would not be here, if the President made this change.
A Right.
Q Who, Mr. Donoghue, was, sort of, the primary advocate or voice against the leadership change? Was it you personally, or was it sort of a consensus and everyone was sort of equally chiming in? Or just give me a better sense as to, sort of, who was doing most of the talking and was the most strenuous advocate.
A It was definitely a consensus. We were all on the same page except for Jeff Clark. But we played different roles.
For one thing, Jeff Rosen was in a bad position because he was defending his own job. So anything he said, obviously, was very self-interested. And so he wasn't in the best position to make some of these arguments. And by demeanor, he just has a different demeanor, as does Pat Cipollone, as does Steve Engel. So everyone played their own role. My demeanor is more aggressive and more blunt, and so I played that role.
And so everyone was on the same page, advocating for the same thing in very ​different ways, and I think that had an impact on the President. I think he likes to see that difference of view and different approach, and I think he lets people speak their mind and fight it out in front of him before he makes a decision.
Q I mean, I've heard this meeting described sort of like an "Apprentice"-like meeting, where there's a firing decision at the end. Is that a fair characterization?
A I can honestly say I've never seen 1 minute of "The Apprentice" in my life, so I can't opine about that.
Q Fair enough.
Anyone else threaten to resign? Mr. Philbin or Mr. Herschmann or anyone else who was present? Mr. Meadows?
A Meadows was not there.
Q I'm sorry, Mr. Meadows wasn't there. Excuse me. My mistake.
A Right. I don't remember if anyone else said anything specifically. I think Pat Philbin and Pat Cipollone were always sort of viewed as a package deal, so—
Q Yeah.
A —if I thought about it for a moment, I would've thought, if Cipollone is leaving, Philbin's leaving too.
But it was more a matter of me saying, "You're going to lose your Department leadership," and then Pat Cipollone stepping in and saying, "And, basically, you're going to lose your White House counsel as well."
Q Yeah. Okay.
After, I believe, he makes the decision to stay the course and leave Mr. Rosen in, does he then start talking about the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, Mr. Pak?
A I think that was actually before that.
Q Okay.
​A I think the President really didn't announce his final decision until probably about the last 15 minutes of the meeting.
Q Uh-huh.
A But somewhere in the middle of the meeting someone mentioned Atlanta, and the President said, "Oh, yeah, Atlanta, Atlanta." And then he picked up a piece of paper that was on his desk, and he started waving it. And he said, "No wonder nothing's been found in Atlanta, because the U.S. attorney there is a Never Trumper."
And I had no idea what he was talking about. I said, you know, "Mr. President, I don't know what you mean." And then he had this piece of paper, and he read a quote from it that was purportedly from B.J. Pak, who was the U.S. attorney in Atlanta. It was critical of the President.
And I didn't know where this quote came from. I had no idea what he was talking about. But I just said, look, Mr. President, I don't even know what a Never Trumper is, but I'll tell you, all your U.S. attorneys were vetted, and I doubt B.J. said anything like that. But whatever it was, B.J. has been doing his job.
And he said, "No, no, no. He's a Never Trumper." He was very adamant about that at that point. "This guy is a Never Trumper. He should never have been in my administration to begin with. How did this guy end up in my administration?"
And then he said, "I want you to fire him," to me. I responded, "Mr. President, I'm not going to fire him. There's no reason to fire him." And he said, "Well, then I'm going to fire him." I said, "Well, you should just know, before you make that decision, that he told me a couple days ago he was submitting his resignation on Monday," which was the next day.
So, if you want to fire someone who's resigning—and then Pat Cipollone stepped in and said, "Well, that's ridiculous. The guy's resigning. We're not going to fire him."
​And the President said, "Fine. I'm not going to fire him then, but when his resignation comes in tomorrow, it's accepted immediately. Tomorrow's his last day as U.S. attorney." And Pat said, "Fine. We'll deal with that later" and, sort of, took it off the table.
Q Uh-huh.
A And then the President said, "What do you know about Bobby Christine?" Bobby Christine was the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Georgia. I was surprised at the question. I didn't know where it was going. I said, "Bobby Christine is an excellent U.S. attorney." He said, "Yes, that's what I've heard. I want Bobby Christine to run the Northern District of Georgia."
I said, "Mr. President, Bobby Christine is already running the Southern District of Georgia. B.J. will have a first assistant. When he leaves, the first assistant will step up and be the U.S. attorney." He said, "No. I want Bobby Christine to do it, because if he is really good the way people say, maybe he'll do the job."
And then he yelled for one of the administrative assistants to get Bobby Christine on the phone. They did in very short order. Bobby ended up on the phone. He was clearly confused as to what was going on.
The President said, "Bobby, this is President Trump. I'm sitting here with Rich, Jeff, and some other people. I want to know, are you able to run the Northern District of Georgia? Because B.J. Pak's going to be leaving."
And Bobby was clearly confused and said, "Mr. President, I can do whatever is asked in that regard." He said, "Great, Rich will call you later and explain everything" and hung up. And that was that.
So that was left as: B.J. was resigning the next day, his resignation would be accepted same day, and Bobby would take over the Northern District of Georgia for the ​remaining few weeks of the administration.
Q Did he saying anything more about Bobby Christine and why he thought highly of him or thought that he would do something different than B.J. Pak had done?
A No, just that he had heard great things about Bobby. I knew that Bobby was a one-star general in the—I believe it was the Georgia National Guard. And so he had long military history. I know that's something that the President favors. I don't know if that played into his understanding or not.
Q Uh-huh.
All right. Anything else you remember, Mr. Donoghue, before the last 15 minutes, when he says, "Okay, I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to make a change"? Any other name come up, subject matter discussed, or anything else that's noteworthy about the 2-1/2-hour meeting?
A There was a lot there. It was certainly a rollercoaster ride of a meeting, so I'm sure there are things I'm not remembering. I think at some point he had asked about names of other U.S. attorneys. You know, what do you think of this guy? What do you think of that guy? And I just said: Good U.S. attorneys, they're solid, they're doing their job.
Q Uh-huh.
When he announced his decision, did he give a reason why he was not going to follow through with the change to put Clark in as the Acting Attorney General?
A So, in about the last 15 minutes, after he'd heard everyone out extensively, he said, "All right, I've heard everyone, and we're not going to do this."
He looked at Jeff Clark. He said, "I appreciate your willingness to do it. I appreciate you being willing to suffer the abuse. But the reality is, you're not going to get anything done. These guys are going to quit. Everyone else is going to resign. It's ​going to be a disaster. The bureaucracy will eat you alive. And no matter how much you want to get things done in the next few weeks, you won't be able to get it done, and it's not going to be worth the breakage."
I think someone else had used that term earlier, maybe Pat Cipollone, "Is it really worth the breakage?" And the President said, "It's not going to be worth the breakage to make this change at this point."
Q Uh-huh.
A And he said again, "These two, I know, are not going to get it done. But that is what it is at this point." He talked about how disappointed he was in us, but said to Clark that, I'm just not going to do this.
At that point, Clark began trying to get the President to change his mind. He said a number of things—you know, history is calling, this is our opportunity, we can get this done, and so on and so forth. And the President then just sort of doubled down and said, "No, we're not going to do it."
A Uh-huh.
A At that point, the President looked at me and said, "So now what happens with him?", gesturing toward Jeff Clark. I didn't understand the question. I said, "Sir?" And he said, "Are you going to fire him?"
I said, "No, I'm not going to fire him. I don't have the authority to fire him. He's a Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General." And the President said, "Well, I'm not going to fire him." I said, "Well, that's fine then, sir. We should all just go back to work."
And we all got up and walked out of the Oval Office.