Federal agents conducted a search of the Virginia home of Jeffrey Clark, a Trump Justice Department official tied to the former president’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, a source told The Associated Press.
The news was first reported by ABC News.
The reason for the search was not immediately clear. Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, confirmed the existence of law enforcement activity in Lorton, Virginia, where Clark lives, but would not elaborate on the purpose.
Former President Donald Trump tried to replace then-acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen with Clark, a lower-level Justice Department official who championed his bogus claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
The defeated Trump contemplated elevating Clark, who led the department’s civil division but is no longer with the department, to the agency’s top role after he identified himself as eager to pursue Trump’s false claims of voter fraud.
Trump relented only when other senior Justice Department officials warned Trump that they would resign if he followed through with his plan to replace Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who is to testify on Thursday, with Clark.
Rosen is set to testify Thursday before the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Clark’s role in the run-up to the deadly insurrection expected to be featured prominently at the hearing, which is set to center around Trump’s efforts to pressure Justice Department officials.
The Justice Department has shown signs of accelerating its investigation into the run-up of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, serving a wave of subpoenas related to a scheme to use alternate, or fake, electors to invalidate the results of the election won by Joe Biden.
