Criminal Complaint Filed Against Trump Goon Over Election Meddling

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The government watchdog group known as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has now filed a criminal complaint against Jeffrey Clark, who served as a top official in the Justice Department during the Trump era. The complaint is tied to Clark’s attempts at election meddling. While in power, Clark helped push pro-Trump lies about the integrity of last year’s presidential election, which the ex-president and others have falsely claimed was somehow rigged for Joe Biden. Clark’s efforts included an attempt to pressure Justice Department leaders into sending a letter to Georgia officials claiming that the Justice Department had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia,” which was false.

In a statement, CREW notes that federal law makes it a criminal act for any two or more people to “conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person… in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States,” and those “rights” include the right to vote. Carrying out Trump’s scheme to overturn the presidential election results would have entailed essentially nullifying the votes of millions of people. CREW also notes that provisions of the federal law known as the Hatch Act “prohibit officials from using their official authority to interfere with federal election[s],” which appears to be essentially exactly what Clark did.

As CREW President Noah Bookbinder put it this week:

‘Jeffrey Clark appears to have taken significant actions to further Donald Trump’s and Mark Meadows’s attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election, a campaign which fundamentally undercut the principles of democratic elections and peaceful transition of power upon which our constitutional system is based… It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of these potential offenses, and we respectfully request the DOJ open an investigation into Jeffrey Clark’s potentially criminal behavior.’

That letter which Clark wanted the Justice Department to send to officials in Georgia also urged leaders in the state to call a special legislative session to examine the supposed fraud issues. Around the country, state legislators in areas Biden won faced pressure from pro-Trump interests to appoint members of the electoral college who would have supported Trump instead of Biden, which would have itself amounted to an actual theft of the election. Presidential elections are decided by electoral votes, with each state appointing members of the body known as the electoral college who will support whichever candidate won the popular vote in their respective states. Notably, Clark was in direct contact with Trump during these developments, and Bookbinder notes that Clark’s “conduct exemplifies the corrupt behavior and abuses of power that were permitted and often encouraged during the Trump administration.”