Capitol Riot Panel Delays Ex-Justice Official’s Reappearance

(Bloomberg) -- Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark's scheduled return on Saturday for questioning before a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was postponed Friday because of “a medical condition,” the panel announced.

After refusing to answer questions during an earlier appearance on Nov. 5 under subpoena, Clark faced the possibility of joining Steve Bannon as a second ally of former President Donald Trump being held in contempt of Congress. 

He then agreed to the Saturday session. 

But his lawyer, Harry MacDougald, informed the committee “of a medical condition that precludes his participation in tomorrow's meeting and he has provided ample evidence of his claim,” Tim Mulvey, a panel spokesman, said in a statement on Friday evening.

The committee's chairman, Bennie Thompson, “has agreed to postpone the deposition until Dec. 16th. Chairman Thompson wishes Mr. Clark well,” added Mulvey, who declined to discuss the medical condition.

MacDougald did not return messages for comment.

The Friday postponement was just the latest of the fits and starts between the committee and Clark, a Trump appointee to the Department of Justice. Clark, who was an assistant attorney general, is accused of pressuring colleagues to assist in Trump's failed attempts to undo his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Earlier: Jan. 6 Panel Recommends Holding Ex-Justice Official in Contempt

“To further these efforts, President Trump considered installing Mr. Clark as the acting attorney general, a plan that was abandoned only after much of the DOJ leadership team and the White House Counsel threatened to resign if Mr. Clark was appointed,” the House committee said in its report.

During Clark's initial appearance on Nov. 5 under committee subpoena, “he wouldn't answer questions, he bickered with our members and counsel, and then he got up and left,” Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, said Thursday.

On Wednesday night, the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans unanimously advanced a criminal contempt of Congress resolution against Clark, which still awaits a majority vote of the entire House for referral to the Justice Department for prosecution.

Only an eleventh-hour communication Wednesday night from Clark's lawyer that he'd decided to appear again has kept that contempt action pending. 

Through his lawyer, MacDougald, Clark signaled to the committee he planned to invoke his Fifth Amendment right to not answer an array of questions.

Clark did not specifically cite that constitutional remedy against self-incrimination when he appeared initially on Nov. 5 under subpoena for his deposition.

The committee's vice chair, Republican Liz Cheney, has suggested that even Clark's assertions of the Fifth Amendment could aid the committee, in some way, “apparently, because he believes testimony about his interactions with President Trump would tend to incriminate him and thus may subject him to criminal prosecution.”

Thompson has warned that the committee will not allow anyone to “run out the clock” and “we cannot be delayed.”

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