Perry reportedly played a key role in a December 2020 crisis at the
Justice Department, in which Trump considered firing Rosen and replacing him with
Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division of the
DOJ.
[74] According to
The Los Angeles Times, Perry "prompted" Trump to consider the replacement.
[81] The New York Times reported that Perry introduced Clark to Trump because Clark's "openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president's efforts to undo them."
[74] Before the certification of the electoral college vote on January 6, Perry and Clark reportedly discussed a plan in which the Justice Department would send Georgia legislators
a letter suggesting the DOJ had evidence of voter fraud and suggesting the legislators invalidate Georgia's electoral votes, even though the DOJ had investigated reports of fraud but found nothing significant, as attorney general
Bill Barr had publicly announced weeks earlier.
[74][82] Clark drafted a letter to Georgia officials and presented it to Rosen and his deputy
Richard Donoghue. It claimed the DOJ had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States" and urged the Georgia legislature to convene a special session for the "purpose of considering issues pertaining to the appointment of Presidential Electors." Rosen and Donoghue rejected the proposal.
[83] In August 2021, CNN reported that Ratcliffe had briefed top Justice Department officials that no evidence had been found of any foreign powers' interference with voting machines. Clark was reportedly concerned that intelligence community analysts were withholding information and believed Perry and others knew more about possible foreign interference. Clark requested authorization from Rosen and Donoghue for another briefing from Ratcliffe, asserting hackers had found that "a
Dominion machine accessed the Internet through a smart thermostat with a net connection trail leading back to China."
[84]
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