The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - Episode 172 LIVE： The Jeff Clark Story (feat. Jeff Clark) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

00:00:00.000 Matt Gaetz, the biggest firebrand inside of the House of Representatives.

00:00:07.400 You're not taking Matt Gaetz off the board, okay?

00:00:09.800 Because Matt Gaetz is an American patriot and Matt Gaetz is an American hero.

00:00:14.520 We will not continue to allow the Uniparty to run this town without a fight. 1.00

00:00:19.720 I want to thank you, Matt Gaetz, for holding the line.

00:00:24.240 Matt Gaetz is a courageous man.

00:00:26.240 If we had hundreds of Matt Gaetz in D.C., the country turns around.

00:00:31.000 It's that simple.

00:00:31.820 He's so tough. He's so strong.

00:00:33.840 He's smart, and he loves this country.

00:00:36.200 Matt Gaetz.

00:00:37.900 It is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you.

00:00:43.120 We will save America.

00:00:45.220 It's choose your fighter time.

00:00:47.000 Send in the firebrands. 1.00

00:00:53.180 Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Firebrand.

00:00:55.220 We're broadcasting live from the Rumble Studios here in our nation's capital in Washington, D.C.

00:00:59.860 Remember, the best way to consume firebrand, download the Rumble app, set your notifications on.

00:01:05.660 That way, when we have conversations, when we've got breaking news, and when we've got the Gaetz network running 24-7,

00:01:12.580 you're going to be able to have access to the information that will make you the smartest person in the room

00:01:16.460 and informed as to the true character and nature of the decision-making process here in Washington, D.C.

00:01:21.780 Now, one of the things that we talk about frequently on the program is lawfare,

00:01:25.820 the weaponization of the justice system against those who are righteously in the fight.

00:01:30.660 And we're going to do a deep dive in some of those election integrity issues

00:01:34.380 and the ways in which this Biden Justice Department has really targeted people

00:01:40.060 and has really taken what we believe about due process and about evidentiary presentations

00:01:46.220 and instead used the awesome powers of the Department of Justice to suppress evidence

00:01:52.740 and then to try to hassle people and do great harm to our country.

00:01:57.980 That's unfortunately what we've seen in too many circumstances.

00:02:00.280 And there's no better person who I think has been fighting the good fight than my good friend Jeff Clark.

00:02:07.000 Jeff, thanks so much for being here with me.

00:02:09.120 A lot of people remember you as the mild-mannered environmental lawyer at the Department of Justice.

00:02:15.460 And when we started to see in Congress, when others started to see real concerns

00:02:20.620 about the way the 2020 election was being sort of adjudicated and investigated,

00:02:27.000 that there was an active effort to shut down review of different allegations.

00:02:33.280 And we know as lawyers that allegations are not evidence.

00:02:36.760 You have to corroborate things that you hear from people.

00:02:39.760 You've got to look at the validity of documents.

00:02:41.840 But just for a moment, before we get into everything that's kind of happened since,

00:02:46.340 bring my audience to that, to what it was like for you as a senior lawyer in the Justice Department

00:02:52.720 when you started to see some of these concerns percolate about the 2020 election

00:02:58.540 and kind of the ethic and dynamic that was going on at DOJ at that time.

00:03:03.480 Sure.

00:03:04.160 Well, thanks for having me on.

00:03:05.820 I really appreciate it.

00:03:06.860 And so we're in November of 2020.

00:03:11.860 It's after the election.

00:03:13.040 And I'm watching all of the election irregularities mount up one after another, right?

00:03:18.520 You know, the late night dumps of ballots, the shutting down of the counting process,

00:03:23.720 the fake water main break at the Georgia Atlantic Convention Center.

00:03:28.620 And, you know, I'm just scratching my head and I'm like, what are we doing about this?

00:03:31.520 So Bill Barr puts out a memo on November 9th, 2020, and he says that all of the U.S.

00:03:37.240 attorney's offices, the head of the criminal division and the head of the civil rights

00:03:40.520 division can investigate allegations of election, not just fraud, but also irregularities.

00:03:46.220 And I thought, all right, well, you know, they're doing something right.

00:03:50.580 Time goes on.

00:03:51.620 We're getting later and later into November.

00:03:53.540 And I'm not hearing that anything is going on.

00:03:56.440 And so, you know, eventually I went to talk to some of the Uber leaders of the Justice

00:04:02.760 Department at the time and, you know, express my concerns and said, what's going on?

00:04:07.120 And what I was basically told was, you know, we were told by different parts of the career

00:04:14.460 staff that there's nothing we can do here.

00:04:16.280 There are no, we don't have any real levers.

00:04:19.800 And I scratched my head.

00:04:21.060 I said, that can't possibly be true.

00:04:22.400 I broke out the election manual.

00:04:24.940 There's a multi-hundred page election manual that the criminal division, which has charge

00:04:30.060 of election investigations primarily historically, has.

00:04:34.740 And, you know, I saw all sorts of provisions that could be used.

00:04:38.000 And I also thought that, you know, some of the things I was hearing out of the states,

00:04:42.300 like in Georgia, the idea that while there were no options because they couldn't go into

00:04:47.400 special session, so they couldn't investigate the fact that they'd gotten a report from one

00:04:51.920 of their own senators, Senator Ligon, who'd done a multi-day hearings.

00:04:55.600 And he'd gotten a lot of, you know, evidence collected of fraud and irregularities in especially

00:05:01.640 Fulton County, but in other parts of Georgia as well.

00:05:03.940 And, you know, I came up with the idea of, you know, trying to tell them that they have

00:05:11.460 the power directly as a direct U.S. Constitution delegation to call themselves into special session

00:05:17.660 because they have that direct delegation to regulate the election under the Elector's Clause,

00:05:22.480 right?

00:05:22.680 And then we started talking about that issue internally.

00:05:26.240 And it just, it led to a firestorm.

00:05:28.540 And that firestorm, you know, led to all the other things we'll get into, like just a house

00:05:34.000 of bricks kind of coming down on me.

00:05:36.300 And then this was all internal to the Justice Department.

00:05:39.360 And, you know, there are still many parts of it that I think are privileged and the details

00:05:44.500 of it are privileged.

00:05:45.380 And President Trump's asked me, you know, he's invoked executive privilege on my behalf twice.

00:05:49.700 And so, but, you know, there are parts of the story that have been made so public that

00:05:54.240 I can talk about those.

00:05:55.800 And, you know, that was all the result of anonymous leaks from my own colleagues, many of whom

00:06:02.140 were Trump appointees, although not all of them were Trump appointees, to the New York

00:06:05.740 Times two days after Joe Biden was elected.

00:06:09.340 And ever since I've been canceled by big law, I've been attacked constantly by MSNBC and CNN.

00:06:15.160 And, you know, the rest of the story we'll get into.

00:06:17.300 Yeah, I think that it showcases the way the regime fights back.

00:06:22.160 But I think there's two theories of the case about those moments at DOJ directly following

00:06:27.560 the certification from, well, not even leading up to the certification. 0.74

00:06:33.580 One theory is, well, these were just a bunch of buffoons who had no real understanding of

00:06:39.760 their powers to investigate these claims of irregularity or what you were seeing in affidavits

00:06:45.760 emerge in various courts around the country.

00:06:49.200 And then there's another theory of the case where they were actively suppressing the organic

00:06:57.140 upward movement of information from field offices, from state and local authorities, from even

00:07:04.400 a state legislative committee.

00:07:05.860 They were actively ensuring that that never developed into a legitimate investigation.

00:07:11.600 And I actually think it's the latter.

00:07:13.640 I don't think that Barr and his top people were just too incompetent to investigate election

00:07:19.140 fraud.

00:07:19.620 I think they were subversive in the way that they purposefully tried to diminish any concern

00:07:26.580 that arose.

00:07:27.620 Is that a fair characterization?

00:07:29.020 I think it is, especially based on things that some things I did not know at the time that

00:07:33.780 would come out later.

00:07:34.800 So we know that Bill McSwain, the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, my hometown, the Eastern District

00:07:41.000 of Pennsylvania, he had serious information about election fraud in Philadelphia.

00:07:46.300 And Philadelphia is a hotbed of fraud, which I also knew from my mom, who was a Republican

00:07:51.900 poll worker, and also from this scandal in the 1990s, I actually interviewed with a judge

00:07:59.300 who had this case called Nueva Forma, that the Democrats were basically trying to do some

00:08:06.580 of the same sorts of fraud things we've seen.

00:08:09.040 And he had charge of that case.

00:08:10.760 They threw the book at that case, and that was shut down in Philadelphia.

00:08:13.880 So McSwain was aware of all this.

00:08:15.940 He wanted to pursue it.

00:08:16.840 He went to Bill Barr.

00:08:17.960 Bill Barr said, no, can't do that.

00:08:20.220 And I want you to turn over any evidence you have to Josh Shapiro, who was then the attorney

00:08:27.500 general, right, who had already pre-announced that Biden was going to win the election.

00:08:31.780 So that was pointless.

00:08:33.580 There's Larry Keefe in Florida, U.S. attorney in Florida.

00:08:38.160 He had information that related to shenanigans tied to-

00:08:43.560 And vote-by-mail requests.

00:08:45.060 Yes.

00:08:45.340 And that was also shut down by Barr.

00:08:48.640 And indeed, Barr issued a threat that if I ever, you know, hear about this again from

00:08:52.260 you, you're going to get fired.

00:08:54.460 The third incident I would point to is that, you know, there were these allegations from

00:09:01.060 the postal truck driver in Bethpage, New York, that he was taking, you know, ballots suspiciously

00:09:06.720 into Pennsylvania.

00:09:08.060 And that was being investigated by the Amistad project and by Colonel Schaefer.

00:09:15.900 And Barr winds up on the phone yelling at Colonel Schaefer to tells him to shut down the investigation.

00:09:21.080 So there's three things right there.

00:09:22.480 And then I'll give you fourth data point.

00:09:24.460 So we have Barr's testimony after to the January 6th committee.

00:09:29.060 And unlike many witnesses, like witnesses, you know, generally tend to get like a few minutes

00:09:34.100 to say something, you know, to kind of set the stage for themselves.

00:09:37.740 But he was allowed, I think, in an unprecedented way, since I've read many of those deposition

00:09:41.860 transcripts that are publicly available.

00:09:43.480 There's some that, you know, apparently have been destroyed that we don't have.

00:09:48.340 And they destroyed the videos, as you know.

00:09:51.000 But he was allowed to say, look, I want to set out three categories.

00:09:54.500 There's a category of election laws being changed by actors within a state other than

00:10:02.880 the legislature, because the electors' clause says the state legislature is in charge of

00:10:06.800 those rules.

00:10:07.880 And so that's an unconstitutional problem right there, right?

00:10:10.960 The second category is there's election law, you know, in the state legislature.

00:10:15.840 It hasn't been changed.

00:10:16.680 It's fully operative, but it's been disobeyed.

00:10:20.500 So that's the second category.

00:10:21.520 Third category, fraud.

00:10:23.020 You know, like the equivalent of stuffing ballots, you know, either electronically or

00:10:27.720 physically or putting in mail-in ballots that aren't legitimate.

00:10:32.140 He's like, we only looked at the third category.

00:10:34.040 We did not look at the other two categories.

00:10:35.700 And like right there, I read that.

00:10:36.940 I'm like, what?

00:10:37.740 Like, why would you disclaim authority to look at those two things?

00:10:40.780 Those were vital elements of what was going on in using COVID as a cover to have this entire

00:10:45.980 giant mail-in voting operation.

00:10:48.760 And then I guess then I'll say, here's a fifth element.

00:10:51.320 Barr brought in the U.S. attorney from the Eastern District of New York, and he was not

00:10:58.960 appointed by Trump.

00:11:00.040 It's a guy named Richard Donahue.

00:11:01.200 He was appointed by the judges of that district, which is pursuant to a statute that I'd urge

00:11:07.100 you actually to take a look at because I think it's unconstitutional.

00:11:09.760 I think the president has to make all appointments.

00:11:13.580 But he took him as the U.S. attorney and he moved him to make him what we call in DOJ main

00:11:18.300 justice, the pay dag, the principal associate deputy attorney general.

00:11:22.460 So he becomes the number two for the deputy attorney general, who's the number two in the

00:11:26.580 whole department.

00:11:27.700 So Donahue is brought in and he's given exclusive charge of all election-related investigations.

00:11:33.640 And I have no idea why you would bring in, why would, first of all, why would a U.S.

00:11:38.660 attorney want to leave to be the pay dag? 0.98

00:11:40.660 Like, you know, that's a demotion.

00:11:42.100 Instead of running his entire office and the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's office, they think

00:11:46.460 of themselves as, you know, as good as or better than the Southern District of New York,

00:11:51.740 which they tend to think of themselves in elevated terms.

00:11:54.580 So why would someone want to leave running their own show in the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's

00:11:59.660 office, which also can be a very lucrative position to get, and come in and be the pay dag

00:12:04.600 who actually no one directly reports to?

00:12:06.980 They only have the authority that the deputy attorney general gives them.

00:12:09.560 And so it just, it seemed very strange to me.

00:12:12.820 And so I see that also as part and parcel of the fact that your second hypothesis is the

00:12:17.560 one that is true.

00:12:19.420 And so the criticism of your efforts largely centers around the argument that you were trying

00:12:26.100 to operate in a way outside of our institutions, that our institutions have this way to contemplate

00:12:32.660 these questions, and you go rogue and you try to operate outside the institutions.

00:12:38.120 But as I've reviewed the memo that you wrote that was like falsely deemed the insurrection

00:12:45.880 memo, it is actually a roadmap on how to use a constitutionally contemplated process and

00:12:52.420 how to use the institutions that exist, be it the legislature, be it the Department of

00:12:56.460 Justice, to merely investigate the facts.

00:12:59.020 Like that must be as a Harvard-educated lawyer, as someone who's worked at a lot of these white 0.97

00:13:06.680 collar law firms, it must be intensely frustrating that the criticism really showcases the vulnerability

00:13:14.760 of the people who were trying to use the institutions to subvert the evidence and squash the evidence.

00:13:20.880 And you are merely trying to use our institutions to conduct a lawful proper constitutional investigation.

00:13:27.300 It must be deeply frustrating.

00:13:30.100 It is very frustrating, Congressman. 0.72

00:13:33.120 And look, it led them to make accusations that are ridiculous and easily legally pierced.

00:13:42.580 For instance, you know, at some points they've argued that, well, the Justice Department can't

00:13:47.720 send letters to people, you know, and can't send letters to states.

00:13:50.920 And I was like, why do we have an intergovernmental liaison function if that's true?

00:13:56.400 We do that all the time.

00:13:57.480 We do that all the time.

00:13:58.420 And indeed, you know, a very early act in the Biden Justice Department was the acting Assistant

00:14:05.400 Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division, Pam Carlin, who was a law professor at Stanford,

00:14:10.400 who also, you know, a quick deviation.

00:14:13.540 When I went into the Justice Department in 2018, the ethics officials told me that I would

00:14:19.980 need to resign my unpaid volunteer position as the head of one of the practice groups for

00:14:25.520 the Federalist Society.

00:14:26.360 And so, you know, I handed it off to somebody else.

00:14:30.460 I gave that to him, right?

00:14:31.120 But that was unpaid.

00:14:32.920 The ethics people cleared Pam Carlin while she was the acting Assistant Attorney General

00:14:37.800 of the Civil Rights Division to continue to receive her $900,000 a year salary from Stanford.

00:14:43.540 And so she sends a letter when Arizona is doing their audit.

00:14:48.120 She sends, and one of the components was to start canvassing.

00:14:51.040 She sends a letter to them and says, don't do that.

00:14:53.780 That's voting interference.

00:14:55.300 Oh, no, we covered that extensively on Firebrand about that effort by the Justice Department

00:15:00.440 to scare states into, you know, into basically lethargy so that they weren't doing the hygiene

00:15:08.600 that you would do to continue to have clean elections.

00:15:11.060 Right.

00:15:11.200 So you seek the lawful, legal, constitutionally contemplated process, and then you get hammered

00:15:20.180 for it.

00:15:20.960 You get indicted.

00:15:22.700 The bar takes action against you.

00:15:25.420 For folks that are just kind of getting familiar with their story, and we're going to introduce

00:15:28.880 the movie in a moment, like from that moment when you wrote the memo we discussed to engage

00:15:35.000 this lawful process, like the things that have happened in your life.

00:15:40.340 Well, it really started with the anonymously sourced story, which only could have come from lawyers

00:15:47.620 because there was a big showdown meeting, and you'll see that, I think, in the preview

00:15:52.480 in the Oval Office on January 3rd, 2021.

00:15:57.340 Everybody in the meeting, with the exception of President Trump, was a lawyer.

00:16:00.320 And so all of them were bound by confidentiality.

00:16:03.640 I certainly didn't go to the New York Times and start laying out the details of what happened

00:16:08.180 at that meeting.

00:16:09.320 So clearly my opponents did, and they're the ones who violated ethical strictures and the

00:16:16.080 laws of confidentiality within the federal government to do that.

00:16:19.740 So that's the first thing that happened.

00:16:21.260 And then, you know, that led to the press descending on my house constantly, harassing me, following

00:16:26.440 me, you know, trying to talk to the children, et cetera.

00:16:31.180 Then, you know, the committee started coming after me.

00:16:34.160 The January 6th committee.

00:16:35.200 No, first the House Oversight Committee under Carolyn Maloney, then the Senate Judiciary Committee

00:16:40.900 under Durbin, and then the January 6th committee.

00:16:44.080 I fought with all of them for quite a while.

00:16:46.100 And then, as a result of that, actually, you know, wound up being canceled and needed to find

00:16:51.600 another job.

00:16:52.380 And that, you know, one reason why I'm very thankful to Russ Vogt, my colleague from the

00:16:56.220 Trump administration, is that now I'm gainfully employed at the Center for Renewing America.

00:17:01.720 So, you know, there was economic pressure, there are legal fees, so many multiple proceedings.

00:17:07.620 There's such a big hit to your reputation.

00:17:10.840 My applications to law firms, which I, you know, put in after the end of the Trump administration,

00:17:18.640 those all died because, you know, that they just took at face value these ridiculous stories

00:17:23.860 that President Trump and I were plotting a coup, and that in particular, right, that I was

00:17:28.960 the mastermind of this coup, right?

00:17:30.660 That there could be, if it's not me, it's John Eastman or some combination of us or something,

00:17:35.700 even though we weren't working together on anything.

00:17:37.920 Yeah, we share your very high view of the Center for Renewing America, everything that

00:17:41.780 you and Russ are doing there.

00:17:43.040 And they've made this terrific, this terrific movie I want to get into, Fearless, at the

00:17:48.880 point of attack.

00:17:49.640 But when the committees were after you, I mean, ultimately, ultimately, the committee, the

00:17:54.380 congressional committees were after you to try to catch you in misremembering something

00:17:59.400 or it was a perjury trap.

00:18:01.700 It was a perjury trap.

00:18:02.500 Absolutely.

00:18:03.180 Yeah.

00:18:03.340 And so you went and asserted your Fifth Amendment privilege to avoid that perjury trap.

00:18:07.720 Well, so the story is a little more complicated.

00:18:10.080 So first, the House Oversight Committee comes after me.

00:18:12.480 We're kind of talking to them, you know, about parameters, about the fact that a lot of this

00:18:16.460 is privileged, et cetera.

00:18:17.700 Yeah.

00:18:18.100 Then I'm up in New York, actually, in connection with New York City, in connection with a job

00:18:23.860 opportunity around Memorial Day of 2021.

00:18:28.140 And I get, this is the most bizarre thing.

00:18:30.420 I don't think I've really told this story in a lot of different forums.

00:18:34.060 A staffer for Senator Durbin sends me a LinkedIn message and says, Senator Durbin wants you to

00:18:39.300 come in to be deposed.

00:18:42.860 And, you know, I started talking to a lawyer who had done congressional investigations for

00:18:47.120 it.

00:18:47.240 I was like, he's like, no, you get a letter from the committee.

00:18:50.940 And then, you know, we also discovered that he lacked subpoena power because of the 50-50

00:18:56.540 divide in the Senate at the time.

00:18:58.180 So, you know, I basically just stiff-armed that and just, you know, didn't go in and

00:19:02.980 refused to do that.

00:19:03.780 And while we were still talking to the House Oversight Committee, one day, the House Oversight

00:19:08.120 Committee representative just hauled off and said, you've been remanded to the January

00:19:13.000 6th committee, so we will no longer be dealing with you.

00:19:16.440 And then the January 6th committee dropped an appearance and a document subpoena on me.

00:19:22.760 And in November 5th, if I remember correctly, in 2021, that's when I showed up for a deposition.

00:19:29.240 And I think I shocked everybody.

00:19:30.920 They moved the hearing place three times, they said, to accommodate great interest in

00:19:38.500 your deposition.

00:19:40.140 And so I think they clearly thought that they were going to lay this perjury trap, or they

00:19:44.760 thought that I would cave and I would start saying things that they could use against

00:19:49.380 President Trump, who's their ultimate end, as we all know, their objective to bring him

00:19:53.220 down.

00:19:54.100 And so that's why they had everybody attend.

00:19:57.160 Adam Schiff came in person, and everybody else was up on a, you know, Microsoft Teams kind

00:20:03.820 of set up on the screen, all the members, with the exception of Benny Thompson, the chairman.

00:20:07.420 You know, he was AWOL.

00:20:09.320 And, you know, they started launching some questions at us, and we produced like a 25-page,

00:20:14.000 you know, letter memo that said, all of this is executive privileged, it's law enforcement

00:20:19.680 privileged, it's deliberative process privileged, and it is lawyer-client privileged.

00:20:24.340 And, you know, they tried to keep me there.

00:20:29.240 They went into a tiff, and they said, you exit the room, we're going to have a discussion,

00:20:34.080 and then we'll have you return.

00:20:35.460 So we went off to a side conference room.

00:20:38.220 After 10, 15 minutes, they called us back.

00:20:40.280 And, you know, we walked in, and we could hear they were still debating with each other.

00:20:44.780 They clearly were divided.

00:20:46.000 There were some of the members who were like, I mean, you know, there's some arguments here,

00:20:50.600 like we're going to have to digest this, we're going to have to, you know, resume the deposition

00:20:54.080 later or something.

00:20:54.820 And there were others saying like, no, we're going to do this today.

00:20:57.500 And so we walked in, and then Schiff like turned around angrily, and he's like, you know,

00:21:02.320 go away, like what, you know, we haven't called you back yet.

00:21:04.320 But we obviously only went back once they, you know, like one of the staffers told us to

00:21:08.420 come back.

00:21:08.760 So we went back, waited another 10, 50 minutes, we came back.

00:21:11.980 It was clear the strategy that they came to was that they were going to have Schiff try

00:21:15.240 to crack me.

00:21:16.940 So he and I went kind of mano a mano on some legal arguments for a while.

00:21:21.660 And then, you know, we're just going round and round the horn with nothing much happening.

00:21:27.280 Liz Cheney in particular wanted to, you know, know the question of what members of Congress 1.00

00:21:33.020 had I cooperated with and coordinated with in order to like write the letter, etc.

00:21:38.760 And so, you know, a whole bunch of lines of questions that we refused to answer because

00:21:42.680 it was a perjury trap, and because it's all privileged.

00:21:45.760 And so we just said, look, you can't possibly have digested this 25 page letter in, you know,

00:21:51.780 20 minutes, like in between breaks.

00:21:53.740 And so, you know, we're going to leave.

00:21:56.000 And then, you know, I got the stern talking to you in the morning.

00:21:59.260 Chairman Thompson has not adjourned this deposition.

00:22:02.580 You may not leave.

00:22:04.280 And so I looked at the big Microsoft Teams thing, which is as big as this wall over here

00:22:08.360 to your left.

00:22:09.520 And I said, well, Representative Thompson is not here.

00:22:13.460 Chair Thompson is not here.

00:22:14.460 So we're leaving.

00:22:15.140 So we got up and we left.

00:22:17.940 And to finish the story, because it's an interesting story, you know, a few hours later, we receive

00:22:23.360 a letter from Benny Thompson that purports to overrule all of the privilege claims with

00:22:29.440 a little bit of, you know, legal argument thrown in.

00:22:31.780 It's a couple, three, four page letter.

00:22:33.720 And it says, we hereby order you to return for the continuation of the deposition at, you

00:22:39.980 know, like 4 p.m.

00:22:41.260 And the problem was it was already 4.20 p.m.

00:22:43.820 And so we had some fun writing back and saying, like, we don't have a time machine.

00:22:47.300 I can't get back there.

00:22:48.160 And in any event, my lawyer has already boarded a plane to return to Atlanta.

00:22:52.300 Very sorry.

00:22:53.500 And so eventually they tried to hold me in contempt.

00:22:56.660 And I had to come in for a second deposition.

00:22:58.720 It was at the second deposition.

00:23:00.920 I sent a long letter beforehand where I stood on that letter, too.

00:23:04.220 But then I went in for a second deposition in early 2022 and took the fifth.

00:23:10.760 And then they just asked me a whole bunch of questions.

00:23:13.040 And they left.

00:23:13.820 And then they all they did was attack me in hearings later that year.

00:23:17.920 And they are not the only entity that has been on the attack.

00:23:21.740 You know, whether it's it's been the even the Department of Justice's inspector general

00:23:26.580 showing up at your house and hustling and wrestling you out of bed.

00:23:30.000 Just it seems as though the process is the punishment.

00:23:32.920 Yes.

00:23:33.520 And and I tell you what, it really was captured by the Center for Renewing America's

00:23:38.100 recent documentary produced and directed by our good friend Kingsley Wilson.

00:23:42.440 And it it is called Fearless at the point of attack.

00:23:46.880 It's Jeff's great story.

00:23:48.480 We've pulled a cut of it for you.

00:23:50.020 You're going to want to see the whole thing.

00:23:51.220 But watch this.

00:23:52.440 Enjoy.

00:23:52.680 We'll be back on the other side to discuss.

00:23:54.000 At the center of Mr. Clark's plan to undo President Trump's election loss was a letter.

00:24:00.780 Just days before the deadly January 6th assault on the Capitol, one of the ex-president's top

00:24:05.940 Department of Justice officials at the time was circulating a draft letter that would have

00:24:11.260 helped Georgia Republicans overturn Biden's victory in that state.

00:24:15.300 So the letter was quite modest.

00:24:17.660 The letter indicated that the Georgia legislature could call itself into special session and

00:24:25.420 they should look at the report they had received from their own Senate subcommittee and then

00:24:30.940 decide for themselves whether the certified slate of electors at that time for Joe Biden was

00:24:36.840 actually the proper slate of electors or not.

00:24:38.720 I mean, you can't imagine something that seems, you know, more process oriented, right,

00:24:43.820 and more basic and more fundamental to making sure that the American people have confidence

00:24:49.360 in their elections than a recommendation that a state legislature do a further analysis.

00:24:55.100 And yet, you know, the screaming, talking heads on the MSNBCs of the world and the CNNs,

00:25:01.260 you know, they just went into apoplexy about the idea that anyone would suggest this.

00:25:05.160 Before dawn on Wednesday, which is, say, yesterday, a large group of armed federal agents

00:25:11.380 wearing body armor with weapons, raided Jeff Clark's home.

00:25:15.600 They dragged him into the street in his pajamas.

00:25:17.560 Now, what did Jeff Clark do wrong?

00:25:19.220 Jeff Clark did not commit any crime.

00:25:21.500 What he did wrong was calling for an investigation into voter fraud.

00:25:25.020 When my youngest daughter, who was then 12, came back from Atlanta and nobody else was around,

00:25:30.080 she sat down next to me and she asked, you know, Dad, do you think the agents read my diary?

00:25:34.260 And that really hit me, you know, because there's no one who should have to go through this

00:25:40.120 because of these political battles and these perversions of the justice system. 0.66

00:25:44.820 I love the law and I've given my life to the law.

00:25:48.120 I studied the law.

00:25:49.800 I have practiced law as a litigator.

00:25:52.480 I have made law as a state lawmaker and as a federal lawmaker.

00:25:55.720 And so to see my profession weaponized and really just tortured in such a manner, it's very painful.

00:26:06.520 It makes me feel empty about the work of my life on some days when I see what's happening

00:26:10.720 to people like President Trump or Jeff Clark.

00:26:13.400 The way you get power in this town is you help your friends and you hurt your enemies.

00:26:17.100 And the DOJ is, I would say, probably the worst example of the worst features of that.

00:26:22.660 But Jeff Clark saw through that.

00:26:24.800 And that's why he was such a threat.

00:26:26.380 This lawfare has many elements of it.

00:26:28.240 Number one is to put Trump and Trump's inner circle of advisors either into bankruptcy

00:26:33.160 or to put him in jail or to break him somehow, like they're trying to do the president.

00:26:38.540 The other aspect of it is to, and this is actually a more advanced element of it,

00:26:43.120 is to make sure that they take out the lawyers.

00:26:46.200 Jeff Clark's not just disbarment.

00:26:48.160 I mean, the whole assault on him every day and the assault in media is a coordinated attempt

00:26:52.920 to basically show, like Eastman, we're going to take out the best guys you have.

00:27:00.280 We will only defeat these people if we are sufficiently relentless.

00:27:05.020 We have to exhaust them. 0.91

00:27:06.620 We have to offer everything that we have and like shoot at the Death Star.

00:27:10.380 We have no other choice because to decamp from the legal practice or even our institutions

00:27:16.740 would surrender the greatest country to the most evil people in it.

00:27:20.940 In a word or in a sentence about what could be done, it would be to fight fire with fire.

00:27:25.720 Because until fire is fought with fire, the Republicans are going to be attacked by this lawfare

00:27:32.200 and the Democrats are going to dance around with glee, that they're not facing any consequences

00:27:37.620 for perverting the justice system.

00:27:39.440 And we can't allow that to happen.

00:27:43.360 We're back live and Jeff Clark is indeed sufficiently relentless.

00:27:47.780 This is a great flick.

00:27:49.440 Center for Renewing America has it on their X platform.

00:27:52.240 You can find it on our stream as well.

00:27:54.680 And it really shows the pattern that we see play out against President Trump, against other fighters.

00:28:01.380 You know, Jeff, you are still in the fight.

00:28:04.340 No one would have blamed you to take your brilliant mind, head off and escape this kind of sewer

00:28:11.420 of pain that has been inflicted on you.

00:28:14.900 But you're still here.

00:28:15.940 You're still working.

00:28:16.800 Talk a little bit about the work you're doing now at the Center for Renewing America and

00:28:19.760 how folks can keep up with your writing and your research.

00:28:22.980 Sure.

00:28:23.300 Well, you know, thanks for agreeing to be in the movie first.

00:28:27.040 I really appreciate that.

00:28:28.160 And I thought your contributions were great.

00:28:30.200 Some of which you saw there in the clip that you played.

00:28:33.300 So at the Center for Renewing America, you know, we have a small but growing team of lawyers

00:28:38.440 as well as policy people.

00:28:42.240 You know, we are probably one of Washington's newest think tanks, newest conservative think

00:28:47.220 tanks.

00:28:47.720 We have budget experts.

00:28:49.500 We have, you know, folks who are working on matters of the intersection of faith and

00:28:54.640 policy.

00:28:55.280 And we have legal experts.

00:28:58.540 And so, you know, most recently, one of my colleagues, Mark Paoletta and some other affiliates

00:29:05.440 we have put out some great work about the Impoundment Control Act, which, you know, may seem as a, you

00:29:13.300 know, to be something obscure to, you know, listeners, viewers of yours.

00:29:17.040 But look, it's very important because basically it's an attempt to really blow the doors off

00:29:25.140 federal spending.

00:29:25.900 It's one of the reasons why the budget has been, you know, just the deficit and the debt

00:29:30.780 have exploded since the Nixon administration when they put this statute in.

00:29:34.500 And so that paper's up on our website.

00:29:36.700 You can go there.

00:29:37.280 The website is americarenewing.com.

00:29:40.260 I've done and I'm still doing work about the Justice Department.

00:29:43.820 And so, you know, we got featured for a paper I did about the Justice Department on the front

00:29:48.860 page of the New York Times, actually, a paper that I entitled the DOJ is not independent

00:29:55.040 because another one of these so-called post-Watergate norms is the idea that the Justice Department

00:30:01.820 is separate and apart from the president and that the president can't tell them what to

00:30:06.460 do.

00:30:06.940 And somehow it's unseemly if he tells them what to do and politicized, et cetera.

00:30:11.620 And, you know, I remember having some early debates about this, even online on X with Kyle

00:30:16.900 Cheney, this reporter from Politico.

00:30:18.800 And he was like, he couldn't see it.

00:30:20.820 He couldn't understand how is it that you could not be politicized if the president is in

00:30:25.740 charge of the Justice Department.

00:30:26.780 And I was saying, like, look, you can violate the Equal Protection Clause, right? 0.66

00:30:30.820 If a president of one party or the other decides I'm going to prosecute only, you know, members

00:30:36.840 of the opponent party, that's clearly a violation of equal protection, right?

00:30:42.080 So that's the constitutional guarantee.

00:30:44.700 The idea, though, that the president is not the head of the executive branch, he is the

00:30:48.380 head of the executive branch.

00:30:49.480 That means the DOJ reports to him, the attorney general.

00:30:52.880 Which branch of government is the DOJ in, if not the executive branch?

00:30:56.720 Well, you know, what the unstated or sometimes stated answer to that is that, you know, they're

00:31:01.800 part of the fourth branch of government, right?

00:31:04.460 The unelected bureaucracy that wants to be free of presidential power or any other branch's

00:31:09.600 power to the extent that they can.

00:31:10.940 Yeah, that's not really built into our concept of checks and balances, that there's this

00:31:15.240 completely unaccountable floating orb at the Justice Department.

00:31:19.560 Right, and look, you know, I don't want to pat myself on the back too much, but I viewed

00:31:25.380 Merrick Garland, the attorney general's big statement that they broadcast last week from

00:31:32.660 the Great Hall of Justice, which incidentally one of my, you know, big corner offices at

00:31:37.520 the Justice Department was close to.

00:31:39.100 The other one was on the floor just above it, behind it.

00:31:41.900 And, you know, he's in the Great Hall of Justice on the second floor of the Justice Department

00:31:46.760 surrounded by, you know, murals of the great figures of justice like, you know, Moses and

00:31:51.640 Jesus, but Blackstone, et cetera.

00:31:53.920 And he's talking to all the U.S. attorneys and he says, at the Justice Department, we believe

00:31:59.460 in independence and we believe in protecting the norms of, you know, the Justice Department

00:32:05.000 that we've followed ever since Watergate.

00:32:06.780 And as my paper explains, and so I really encourage your, you know, viewers and listeners

00:32:12.640 who have an interest in this to go to the website, americarenewing.com and look at that

00:32:16.360 paper, is that what are norms, right?

00:32:20.240 There's the Constitution, there's statutes, there are regulations, there are judicial decisions.

00:32:26.120 Norms for me does not compute.

00:32:28.440 Norms are not law.

00:32:29.580 They're not any form of law.

00:32:30.760 And they're certainly not a form of law superior to the Constitution and its separation of powers,

00:32:34.680 which only has three branches, not four, not five.

00:32:37.760 And, you know, I thought that Merrick Garland's entire speech was essentially an attempt to

00:32:42.740 sort of like push back on that and say, no, we want these norms.

00:32:46.500 And we're, you know, desperately threatened by the fact that if President Trump is reelected,

00:32:51.540 these norms that we developed of a fourth branch of government and trying to institutionalize

00:32:56.200 that will go into the ash heap of history, but that's where they should go.

00:33:00.000 Yeah, describing something as a norm in Washington, D.C. used to be vaulted.

00:33:03.540 Now it is like a critique, and rightfully so, by the way, because it's been a lot of these

00:33:08.040 norms that have harmed our country a great deal.

00:33:11.760 Jeff, you know, the question a lot of my viewers will have is, are we ready for what's coming

00:33:15.940 next?

00:33:16.900 You got such a close look at the way the machine of this town tried to squelch any concerns

00:33:24.040 about election integrity.

00:33:25.800 And I mean, this election is ongoing right now.

00:33:27.740 People are voting in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

00:33:30.000 What would you tell my viewers about the cleanliness and the integrity of the election that is underway

00:33:36.360 currently?

00:33:37.520 Well, I'd like to see that there were more efforts undertaken in that direction.

00:33:42.320 We only have less than 50 days now.

00:33:45.100 So I think, you know, in terms of what operationally can you do, I think you need to get as many

00:33:50.800 of your neighbors, you know, to either put in mail-in ballots or commit to show up that day.

00:33:56.800 And on election day, if you can take the day off and you can help drive people there, that'd

00:34:02.080 be great.

00:34:02.520 You know, talk to any undecided voter.

00:34:04.060 You can strike up conversations with your neighbors or with people you meet.

00:34:09.160 But just like, what about the laws?

00:34:10.760 Because I look at the laws in some places like Georgia, and they got better with signature

00:34:16.220 verification.

00:34:17.260 And with ending Zuckerbuck's in Georgia, for instance.

00:34:19.780 Very good.

00:34:20.300 So yeah, directionally correct.

00:34:22.260 But then I look at Maricopa County, Arizona, and I can't really point to a lot of major

00:34:28.160 improvements there.

00:34:28.820 And then I look at Pennsylvania, and it almost feels like they're going in the wrong direction.

00:34:32.680 So when you amalgamate it all together, I guess when people are watching these results

00:34:36.940 come in, how confident should they be?

00:34:39.860 Well, I think people should use their common sense.

00:34:42.200 And I think that's what the way the American people reacted after the 2020 election, right?

00:34:48.020 Despite the fact that a media onslaught ensued, not just based on, you know, what the experts

00:34:55.000 were saying, that no one should be concerned.

00:34:57.140 The election was, it was the most pristine election, most secure election in U.S. history,

00:35:01.560 right?

00:35:01.980 Even though they were violating all of the CISA protocols, even though they were violating

00:35:05.940 the computer requirements and the Help America Vote Act have, you know, and on and on.

00:35:11.640 They tried to tell us it was the most secure election.

00:35:13.880 American people didn't believe it, right?

00:35:15.400 And they even didn't believe it after they tried to strike fear into the hearts of Americans

00:35:19.760 by trying to string up anyone who went to the January 6th protest, whether they were

00:35:24.000 engaged in the riot or not, just setting foot in the secured area, many of which, you know,

00:35:29.520 people didn't even know it was a secured area because the fencing and signs had been knocked

00:35:33.460 down by the time they got there.

00:35:35.080 So, you know, I think continue to exercise common sense when you look at this.

00:35:40.180 If we see another shutdown of counting in the middle of the night, you know, I hope the American

00:35:45.240 people won't stand for that.

00:35:47.000 And I think this time, you know, I think the Supreme Court did not want to touch the 2020

00:35:52.020 election.

00:35:52.800 But I think what happened in the immunity decision that was issued by the Supreme Court

00:35:56.900 on July 1st, I think the chief justice has had enough of this lawfare.

00:36:01.720 And I think that this time, you know, if there's a big case that comes to the Supreme Court,

00:36:07.540 gives them a chance to rule on the 2024 election because it looks like it's been stolen a second

00:36:12.280 time, I think they may well take that case.

00:36:15.380 So I hope it doesn't come to that.

00:36:17.240 I hope that, you know, we flood the system that, as the saying is going, you know, on

00:36:22.500 the Republican side, it's too big to rig.

00:36:24.980 But, you know, and I'm praying for that.

00:36:26.700 I think everyone should put prayers in, too.

00:36:29.080 But, you know, there is a better legal strategy, I think, and better legal preparations than

00:36:34.380 last time.

00:36:34.880 But, you know, I guess I would rather have seen it be 100 times stronger than it's been.

00:36:39.880 Yeah, you can't.

00:36:40.560 I mean, I'm just going to be straight with people.

00:36:43.820 You know, on a scale of 1 to 10 on election integrity, not based on like the third world,

00:36:49.920 but based on where America should be, I feel like we're at about a three and a half or a

00:36:53.920 four.

00:36:54.400 I agree with that.

00:36:54.980 In the 2020 election.

00:36:56.620 And I feel like now, you know, maybe we're at like a five, five and a half.

00:37:01.360 I really don't think we have made the requisite reforms, particularly to the mail voting, where

00:37:08.200 we're certain that the ballots that are being tabulated were indeed intended to be cast

00:37:13.100 by a voter.

00:37:14.000 That's my principal concern.

00:37:15.920 And, you know, a lot of the people who watch this program, you're engaged, you're involved.

00:37:20.600 But what you need to know is that the survival of the republic depends on folks a lot smarter

00:37:26.960 than us, technocrats who study these things, who work on these things.

00:37:31.360 And then who are who are resilient in the crucible moment when it's really on the line.

00:37:38.320 And Jeff Clark is a hero of mine.

00:37:40.880 He's a patriot for our country because when he saw things weren't going well, he could

00:37:45.840 have just gone along with everybody else.

00:37:47.560 And by the way, if that were the case, he'd be making three times the salary at one of

00:37:52.040 the Ivy League, you know, white white shoe law firms here in Washington, D.C.

00:37:58.220 But he wanted to be a voice for our institutions.

00:38:01.640 That's that's what's so tragic about this.

00:38:03.940 He wanted to be a voice for the institutional capacity to deal with these irregularities

00:38:08.980 that we were seeing and the concerns that legitimately needed to be evaluated.

00:38:12.900 And for that, they smeared him.

00:38:15.700 They indicted him.

00:38:17.600 They're trying to disbar him.

00:38:19.220 And this this film, Fearless at the Point of Attack, Center for Renewing America, it

00:38:24.300 really chronicles what happens to the people that you have to rely on if you want a safe

00:38:29.300 and secure country.

00:38:30.440 And, you know, this this is not a political show.

00:38:32.780 It's a show that goes over policy.

00:38:34.420 But the policies that we want to see at the Department of Justice are in line with what

00:38:38.980 you just heard Jeff describe, where the Department of Justice isn't some like unaccountable

00:38:43.740 thing out there, but it is actually part of the executive branch and that it's fulfilling

00:38:47.960 the mandate that the executive achieves through a free and fair election.

00:38:52.960 Jeff, I want to give you the last word, give you the chance to talk about where folks can

00:38:56.400 follow you on on X and continue to be supportive of all you're doing for the country.

00:39:01.420 Sure.

00:39:01.740 Well, thanks again for having me on.

00:39:03.780 I really appreciate it and your contributions to the to the movie.

00:39:07.000 So the Center for Renewing America, again, is at America Renewing dot com.

00:39:10.720 I am at Jeff Clark U.S. on X and on Getter and at Real Jeff Clark on Truth Social.

00:39:18.820 And, you know, can I do this?

00:39:20.560 Can I can I ask, you know, if any of your viewers see fit to do it, to send either prayers

00:39:25.140 or contributions to give send go dot com slash Jeff Clark.

00:39:30.700 That's just J-E-F-F-C-L-A-R-K. 1.00

00:39:33.520 Because, you know, at this point, the legal bills, they're just they're enormous and they

00:39:37.480 spread across six different forums since they started unleashing these attacks against me

00:39:42.200 in early twenty twenty one.

00:39:44.120 We have to be relentless.

00:39:45.780 Jeff Clark certainly is.

00:39:46.880 And we would ask all of you to be relentless as well.

00:39:49.300 Thanks so much for joining me, my friend.

00:39:51.100 And we'll be back soon.

00:39:52.520 Roll the credits.

00:39:52.940 We'll see you next time.

The Anchormen Show with Matt Gaetz - September 18, 2024

Episode 172 LIVE： The Jeff Clark Story (feat. Jeff Clark) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript