(Photo
by
Samuel
Corum/Getty
Images)
Last
night,
the
House
Select
Committee
to
Investigate
the
January
6
attack
on
the
US
Capitol
voted
to
refer
former
Justice
Department
lawyer
Jeffrey
B.
Clark
for
contempt
of
Congress
after
he
refused
to
comply
with
a
subpoena
for
documents
and
testimony
about
his
role
in
a
plot
to
use
the
DOJ
to
overturn
the
election.
Having
royally
pissed
off
the
Committee
with
his
antics,
he’s
now
threatening
to
plead
the
Fifth
if
forced
to
testify.
Long
story
short:
he
took
a
poor
hand
and
played
it
very,
very
badly.
Long
story
long:
HO.
LEE.
SHIT.
It
all
started
back
on
October
13,
when
the
Committee
subpoenaed
Clark,
as
well
as
former
acting
Attorney
General
Jeffrey
Rosen
and
acting
Deputy
AG
Richard
Donoghue
to
testify.
The
DOJ
said
it
wasn’t
invoking
privilege,
and
Donald
Trump’s
lawyers
sent
a
blustery
letter
saying
that
he
wasn’t
going
to
sue
to
exert
executive
privilege
as
to
their
testimony
“so
long
as
the
Committees
do
not
seek
privileged
information
from
any
other
Trump
administration
officials
or
advisers.”
So
Rosen,
Donoghue,
and
the
rest
of
the
former
Justice
Department
officials
hightailed
it
on
in
to
the
Committees
to
tell
House
and
Senate
investigators
all
about
that
hilarious
time
Jeff
Clark
tried
to
get
himself
made
AG
so
he
could
launch
a
bunch
of
fake
investigations
into
non-existent
election
fraud
and
allow
swing
state
legislatures
to
recall
their
electors
and
recast
them
for
Trump.
But
not
Jeffrey
Clark. The
onetime
Kirkland
&
Ellis
lawyer
has
employed
a
series
of
increasingly
desperate
stratagems
to
avoid
telling
the
Committee
what
went
down.
Clark’s
lawyer
Harry
MacDougald
of
Caldwell,
Carson,
Elliott
&
DeLoach
LLP
wrote
the
Committee
on
November
5
to
say
that
his
client
was
interpreting
the
subsequent
subpoenas
of
former
White
House
Chief
of
Staff
Mark
Meadows
and
putrefying
podcaster
Stephen
Bannon
as
automatically
invoking
the
snapback
executive
privilege
provisions
in
Trump’s
prior
letter.
He
also
cited
Trump’s
lawsuit
over
records
sought
by
the
Committee
from
the
National
Archives
as
proof
that
the
former
president
wants
his
client
to
keep
quiet,
and
thus
Clark
will
be
producing
no
documents
and
answering
none
of
the
Committees
questions
on
any
topic.
Unsurprisingly,
the
Committee
was
unmoved
by
this
logic
and
continued
to
insist
that
Clark
show
up
as
summoned.
And
so,
on
November
5,
Clark
and
MacDougald
appeared
with
a
12-page
letter
explaining
that
they
could
not
possibly
comply
with
any
queries
due
to
“the
general
category
of
executive
privilege,
the
specific
categories
of
the
presidential
communications,
law
enforcement,
and
deliberative
process
privileges,
as
well
as
the
attorney-client
privilege
and
the
work
product
doctrine.”
The
pair
appeared
to
think
that
the
Committee
would
simply
accept
the
letter
and
let
them
leave.
But
they
were
mistaken.
Bigly.
What
followed
was
an
uncanny
colloquy
where
MacDougald
admitted
that,
while
Trump
had
instructed
Meadows
and
Bannon
not
to
talk
to
the
Committee,
he
had
not
reached
out
to
Clark
to
tell
him
to
zip
it.
Nor
had
the
former
president
followed
through
on
his
threat
to
sue
to
assert
executive
privilege
over
Clark’s
testimony.
Nonetheless,
Clark
was
refusing
to
answer
any
questions,
even
those
which
could
not
possibly
be
construed
as
privileged,
such
as
those
touching
on
his
conversations
with
reporters.
Nor
would
MacDougald
explain
what
privilege
applied
to
any
particular
issue,
characterizing
the
very
inquiry
as
“badgering
the
witness.”
Which
is
literally
not
how
any
of
this
goes.
Not
to
put
too
fine
a
point
on
it,
but
the
transcript
is
batshit.
Here’s
a
fun
excerpt:
Rep.
Raskin:
I
just
wonder
if
Mr.
Clark’s
counsel
has
any
authority
for
the
proposition
that
he
can
categorically
refuse
to
answer
any
questions
as
opposed
to
invoke
the
privilege
he
says
he
has
with
respect
to
the
specific
questions.
MacDougald:
Our
legal
authority
is
set
forth
in
the
letter,
Congressman.
Rep.
Raskin:
Well,
the
letter
seems
to
be
the
magic
solution
for
everything,
but
could
you
name
the
Supreme
Court
decision
that
you’re
refusing
to?
MacDougald:
Congressman
Raskin,
as
I
previously
stated,
we’re
not
going
to
engage
in
legal
debate
or
argument
over
this.
We’ve
set
forth
a
written
objection.
The
committee
can
respond
to
it
in
writing,
and
we’ll
deal
with
that
at
that
time.
But
we’re
not
going
to
do
Q&A
on
legal
points
in
this
deposition.
Shortly
after
this
exchange,
MacDougald
and
Clark
stomped
out,
and
MacDougald
got
on
a
plane.
So
he
and
his
client
weren’t
there
when
the
Committee
reconvened
at
4pm
to
discuss
all
the
things
they
wanted
to
ask
Clark
and
to
decide
whether
he
had
made
a
valid
invocation
of
privilege.
Spoiler
Alert:
LOL.
The
Committee
promptly
scheduled
a
December
1
vote
on
a
contempt
referral
for
Clark.
Perhaps
realizing
that
they
done
fucked
up,
Clark
and
MacDougald
then
fired
off
a
series
of
bizarre
missives
questioning
the
Committee’s
legal
authority.
In
a
November
29
letter,
MacDougald
asserted
that
the
Committee
has
no
subpoena
power
because
its
authorizing
resolution
requires
it
to
consult
with
the
ranking
Republican
member,
who,
uhhh,
does
not
exist.
The
theory
seems
to
be
that,
because
Republicans
refused
to
participate
after
Speaker
Pelosi
rejected
Reps.
Jim
Banks
and
Jim
Jordan,
there
are
no
duly
appointed
Republicans
on
the
Committee.
Astute
observers
will
note
that
Republican
Liz
Cheney
is
Vice
Chair,
and
Republican
Adam
Kinzinger
also
sits
on
the
Committee.
But
MacDougald
insists
that
they
don’t
count
because
they
weren’t
appointed
by
Minority
Leader
Kevin
McCarthy.
And
also,
is
Liz
Cheney
even
a
Republican
anyway
since
the
Wyoming
GOP
hates
her
now?
(Oh,
yes,
he
did.)
Later
that
same
day,
MacDougald
was
back
with
yet
another
letter,
in
which
he
made
a
variety
of
procedural
complaints
—
how
can
it
be
an
official
transcript
if
his
client
refused
to
sign
it,
answer
that
one,
tough
guy!
—
and
generously
offered
to
allow
his
client
to
testify
if
the
Committee
would
simply
limit
its
query
to
that
one
conversation
Clark
had
with
the
Bloomberg
reporter.
In
fact,
the
Committee
would
not
so
limit
itself.
And
according
to
minutes
of
the
meeting
in
which
it
voted
to
refer
him
for
contempt,
Clark
is
now
threatening
to
plead
the
Fifth.
Chair
Bennie
Thompson
said:
Mr.
Clark
previously
had
the
opportunity
to
make
Fifth
Amendment
assertions
on
the
record
and
declined.
But
a
Fifth
Amendment
privilege
assertion
is
very
significant.
So
the
Select
Committee
has
agreed
to
provide
him
another
chance
to
come
in
and
assert
that
privilege
on
a
question-by-question
basis,
which
he’s
required
to
do
by
law
if
he’s
making
such
a
claim.
He
agreed
to
come
in
and
we
will
reconvene
the
deposition
Saturday.But
we
cannot
be
delayed.
The
Select
Committee’s
work
is
too
important.
We
must
be
ready
to
act
quickly
if
Mr.
Clark
remains
in
defiance
of
the
Select
Committee’s
subpoena.
In
case
it
wasn’t
clear
that
they’re
going
to
make
him
eat
every
syllable
of
that
privilege
and
Fifth
Amendment
invocation,
Rep.
Raskin
spelled
it
out
in
comments
to
CNN.
“You
can’t
plead
the
Fifth
to
an
entire
prosecution.
You
can’t
plead
the
Fifth
to
every
question
you
might
be
asked.
So
it
applies
only
when
you
have
a
specific
and
reasonable
apprehension
that
your
answer
could
be
used
against
you
in
a
criminal
prosecution,”
the
Maryland
congressman
said,
adding
later,
“He
didn’t
state
which
criminal
statutes
he
was
referring
to
—
whether
it
was
election
fraud
or
criminal
conspiracy
or
whatever
—
but
presumably
he
would
have
an
opportunity
to
explain
what
are
the
underlying
criminal
statutes
he’s
afraid
of
being
prosecuted
under.”
Fuck
around,
find
out.
Elizabeth
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
writes
about
law
and
politics.