High drama as Jan. 6 hearing details Trump's effort to corrupt Justice Department

In a series of stunning taped testimony, former White House officials said several Republican members of Congress -- including Rep. Matt Gaetz, Rep. Scott Perry, Rep. Louie Gohmert, Rep. Andy Biggs, Rep. Paul Gosar, and Rep. Mo Brooks -- asked the White House for pardons in some form in the final days of the Trump administration following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

"Every Congressman and Senator who voted to reject the electoral college vote submissions of Arizona and Pennsylvania," read an email from Brooks, requesting pardons for himself, Gaetz and others involved in election objections.

Former aide to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, Cassidy Hutchinson, also said Rep. Jim Jordan talked with the White House about pardon updates for members of Congress but did not specifically ask.

"The general tone was, we may get prosecuted because we were defensive of, you know, the president's positions on these things," recalled former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann.

"I know he had hinted at a blanket pardon for the January 6 thing for anybody, but I think he had all the staff and everyone involved, not January 6, but just before he left office," said former Trump White House aide John McEntee in a taped deposition. "I know he had talked about that."

"The only reason I know that you ask for a pardon is that you think you committed a crime," said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill.

Former deputy acting attorney general Richard Donoghue illustrated how serious discussions were of mass resignations at the Justice Department as Trump threatened to replace his attorney general with a lower-level official who supported his plan to overturn the election, describing his fears of the potential impact that it could have in the final days of Trump administration.

Donoghue said he pleaded separately with the head of DOJ's national security division, John Demers, to not be among those who would resign.

"I prefaced the call by saying, 'John, we need you to stay in place. National security is too important and we need to minimize the disruption,'" Donoghue said in the hearing.

Donoghue said while Demers showed a willingness to resign, he agreed with Donoghue's assessment, as they imagined what would happen to the nation's top law enforcement agency should all the top officials resign.

"As Steve Engel noted, the goal was to make clear to Trump he would leave Clark leading a "graveyard," a comment that "clearly had an impact on the president," Donoghue said.

While discussing whether to fire a top official in the Department of Justice in a 2.5 hour meeting at the Oval Office on Jan. 3, 2021, Trump turned to officials in the room and asked them a question, former deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue testified Thursday.

"What do I have to lose?" Trump asked, according to Donoghue.

"It was actually a good opening," Donoghue said. "And I began to explain to him what he had to lose, and what the county had to lose and what department had to lose, and this was not in anyone's best interest."

Donoghue said no one in the room supported Jeffrey Clark taking over as the department's top official, describing him to the president as unqualified. Clark at the time was a Trump-appointed Justice Department official overseeing the department's Civil Division and environmental enforcement matters.

According to call logs displayed by the committee, the White House had already begun referring to Jeffrey Clark as "acting attorney general" on Jan. 3, 2021 -- despite Jeff Rosen, who wouldn't fall in line with election fraud conspiracies, actually serving as acting attorney general.

Trump also met with the aforementioned officials in the Oval Office on Jan. 3, and said, according to Rosen, "'Well the one thing we know is you're not gonna do anything. You don't even agree that the concerns that are being presented are valid. And here is someone who has a different view, so, why shouldn't I do that?'"

Former deputy acting attorney general Richard Donoghue recalled asking attorney generals across the country what they would do if Clark was put in charge.

"All essentially said they would leave," he told the panel. "They would resign en masse if the president made that change in the department leadership."