Steven Engel, former assistant US attorney general for the office of legal counsel, from left, Jeffrey Rosen, former acting US attorney general, and Richard Donoghue, former acting deputy US attorney general, during a hearing of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol in Washington, D.C., US, on Thursday, June 23, 2022. The House committee investigating the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol is focusing on Donald Trump’s attempts to pressure top Justice Department officials to bolster his claims of election fraud in battleground states that Joe Biden won. Photographer: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg
Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue walked into the Oval Office on the evening of Jan. 3, 2021, in muddy boots, jeans and an Army T-shirt to try to persuade the president not to fire his boss and unleash chaos in the U.S. Justice Department.
Donoghue, who was not expecting to be called into the White House that Sunday, appeared at a hastily arranged meeting to prevent former President Donald Trump from installing Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, who was supportive of the former president’s false claims of election fraud, as the acting attorney general.
