Law enforcement officials searched the Virginia home of former top Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, escalating DOJ investigations of President Trump's allies and associates, Politico reports. Russ Vought, who served as Trump’s White House budget director and now works with Clark at the Center for Renewing America, 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 pjs, and took his electronic devices.” DOJ has been scrutinizing people connected to the alternate electors scheme, in which Republicans in states that Joe Biden won in 2020 sent slates of pro-Trump electors to Washington. Republicans around the U.S. signed on as "alternate electors."
In 2020, Clark urged acting attorney general Jeff Rosen to send a letter to top Georgia officials calling for a special session of the legislature. The letter claimed that the DOJ had evidence of voter fraud that could have changed the outcome of the presidential race in several states — which wasn’t true — and also implied that Georgia’s legislature could send pro-Trump electors to the Capitol. It was not immediately clear whether the Clark search happened because of his connection to the alternate electors scheme, or because of other actions. it’s rare for former top administration officials, particularly from DOJ, to face law enforcement scrutiny. In footage played for the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, Eric Herschmann, a Trump White House lawyer, said that at a meeting to discuss election fraud, Herschmann told Clark, "sorry, a-hole — congratulations. You just admitted the first step or act you’d take as attorney general would be committing a felony ... You’re clearly the right candidate for this job.”