Federal authorities have descended on the home of a former Department of Justice official who pushed ex-President Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
Investigators searched Jeffrey Clark’s suburban Virginia home on Wednesday, sources told ABC News on Thursday afternoon.
Clark was central in Trump’s effort to try to get the Justice Department to claim that there was sufficient voter fraud in Georgia and other states to cast doubt on Joe Biden winning the presidency.
Serving as the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division, Clark in December 2020 assisted in drafting a letter to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp stating that the department found ‘significant concerns’ around the ‘outcome of the election’ in several states. The letter was not backed up by evidence.
The letter urged Kemp to call a Georgia state legislature special session to form ‘a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J Trump’.
It was not immediately clear what the investigators may be looking for.
The search occurred the day before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot is set to hold its fifth public hearing, focused on Trump pressuring the Justice Department to help him overturn the election results.
Clark’s role in and steps he took in helping Trump’s effort was expected to be a topic in the hearing scheduled for 3pm on Thursday.
A spokesman for the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC, confirmed to CNN that ‘there was law enforcement activity in the vicinity’ of Clark’s home, declining to comment further.
Clark and his lawyers did not immediately comment.
But Russ Vought, a former Trump administration official and president of the Center for Renewing America where Clark is a senior fellow, tweeted that ‘more than a dozen DOJ law enforcement officials searched Jeff Clark’s house in a pre-dawn raid, put him in the streets in his pajamas, and took his electronic devices’.
‘All because Jeff saw fit to investigate voter fraud,’ Vought continued. ‘This is not America, folks. The weaponization of govt must end. Let me be very clear. We stand by Jeff and so must all patriots in this country.’
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