For one, Clark has gone on to serve in the second Trump administration as the associate administrator for the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, under the White House Office of Management and Budget. And many Border Security Workgroup members — who were among Clark’s brunch audience — have also turned up in positions of federal power. What’s more, Trump has already seized the California National Guard and deployed it on the streets of Los Angeles, along with active-duty Marines, spurring court battles over (you guessed it) Posse Comitatus. Trump has also sabre-rattled about invoking the Insurrection Act seem- ingly whenever a Democratic-led state or city displeases him. These likely aren’t idle threats, docu- ments from the Border Security Workgroup show. Its members spent months working to create plans for Trump that would merge military forces with domestic law enforcement through a new command structure that would ultimately answer directly to Trump. The fact that a man like Jeff Clark was an early source of guidance for those who created these plans does not bode well. ATTEMPTED COUPS DON’T DIE, THEY JUST GO TO HELL TO REGROUP Without Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, Jeffrey Clark probably doesn’t find himself preaching about circum- venting Posse Comitatus at a Project 2025 brunch. The three-month period between Trump’s 2020 election loss and Joe Biden’s inauguration was defined by the chaos of election denialism, culminating in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. In the weeks following the elec- tion, disgraced attorney Sidney Powell unleashed what she called “the Kraken,” a slew of litigation in various courts across the country, seeking to overturn the results of the election. When that fell flat, she and a coterie of Trumpists — including deep- pocketed Trump supporter Patrick Byrne, QAnon fan/former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and fellow “Kraken” attorney Emily Newman — met with Trump on Dec. 18 to urge him to declare martial law and have the military and National Guard seize voting machines in various states. White House Counsel Pat Cippolone vehe- mently opposed these recommendations. Trump never implemented them. Around the same time as that White House meeting, Attorney General William Barr departed his post as head of the Department of Justice. Barr’s deputy, Jeffrey Rosen, succeeded him. Three days after Rosen’s Christmas Eve appointment as acting attorney general, Trump attempted to enlist him and the DOJ in efforts to overturn the election. “Just say that the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen,” Trump told him. Rosen declined to accommodate Trump’s wishes. Enter Clark, who was then serving as the assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. Clark had no particular election expertise. His division at the DOJ handles litigation involving the fossil fuel industry and related regulatory issues, and prior to that posting, Clark had a career in the private sector specializing in such matters. Nevertheless, in Clark, Trump had found an ally willing to advance lies about the election. The day after Trump pressured Rosen to cast doubt on the election, Clark emailed a draft letter to Rosen for his signature. The letter, addressed to the governor and state legislative leaders of Georgia, falsely stated that the DOJ had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the elec- tion in multiple states, including the state of Georgia.” Again, Rosen refused. Not long after, Clark met with Rosen and advised him that Trump had offered Clark the position of acting attorney general — the gig Rosen had just assumed. Clark had accepted the offer, he told the man he was to supposedly replace. This precipitated an emergency White House meeting between Rosen, DOJ leadership, Trump and his advisors. Confronted with the threat of mass DOJ resignations if he installed Clark as head of the department, Trump backed down. The DOJ never issued statements falsely claiming it found irregularities in the 2020 election. How did this man wind up the keynote speaker at a brunch for the assembled “border security” and military wing of Project 2025, to whom he urged the invo- cation of the Insurrection Act to deploy the military on domestic soil? CRN and New Times sent questions to the White House Office of Management and Budget about Clark’s brunch guidance and involvement with the workgroup. OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley responded only: “Please use this on record from me: ‘The Phoenix New Times is a communist rag that no one reads.’” Following the ignominious end of the first Trump administration, many of Trump’s co-conspirators and their allies found refuge in the world of Project 2025, an effort led by the Heritage Foundation and comprised of several right-wing policy groups. Many leading contributors to the project were unabashedly Christian nationalist, and entities of the anti-immi- grant network founded by white nation- alist John Tanton were among the project’s leading contributors. An examination of groups and the individuals involved in the world of Project 2025 also reveals a deep culture of anti-democratic actors who have long worked to restrict voter access, and/ or have taken part in efforts to overthrow elections and undermine election systems. As such, Project 2025 was a synthesis of these pernicious threads of Christian nationalism, white nationalism and those who would seek to seize political power — seemingly at any cost. At the time of Clark’s brunch appear- ance, he was working as a senior fellow and director of litigation at the Center for Renewing America, which was a Project 2025 advisory board member and signifi- cant contributor. CRA’s founding president was Russell Vought, a former Heritage offi- cial and avowed Christian nationalist who has served as head of the Office of Management and Budget in both Trump administrations. Vought wrote the Executive Office of the President chapter in Project 2025’s infamous 922-page “Mandate for Leadership” policy hand- book, giving thanks to Clark for his contributions. Others involved in election subversion efforts — including voter restriction activist Cleta Mitchell and former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows — joined Conservative Partnership Institute, which had been founded by former Heritage leaders, and played a substantial role in Project 2025. CPI is an organization whose website says it works in “incubation” of other right-wing policy groups. It counts among its progeny Vought’s Center for Renewing America and longtime Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation. Many members of the Border Security Workgroup had connections to both Trump and such right-wing groups. For example, prior to the Clark brunch, Sheriff Roy Boyd of Goliad County, Texas, had been a panelist at a CPI event held in Coral Gables, Florida. Other speakers at that event included Meadows, Mitchell and Clark’s boss, Russ Vought. Boyd and other Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup members — including workgroup leader Leon Rios, a retired Army colonel — also had substan- tial ties to the Texas Public Policy Foundation. TPPF was a heavy contrib- utor to Project 2025, and during its lead- ership of this effort, Heritage was headed by former TPPF chief executive Kevin Roberts. Documentation we’ve obtained also shows that TPPF personnel worked directly with the Border Security Workgroup. Like many groups in the Project 2025 sphere, TPPF contained elements related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election. This included Jacki Pick, wife of longtime TPPF director and Evangelical billionaire Doug Deason. According to court docu- ments, Pick — who was an attorney working with the Trump campaign — presented Georgia lawmakers with false evidence claiming to show “suitcases” of fraudulent ballots introduced in Fulton County. At the time, she was a TPPF senior fellow. Rios — who served as the overall leader of both the Border Security Workgroup and Project 2025’s Army Work Group, of which the Border Security Workgroup was largely an offshoot — was at the insurrectionist brunch at which Clark spoke. And he took notes. WORKING AROUND POSSE COMITATUS At the time of the brunch, the Border Security Workgroup was only about a month old. It was still feeling its way — filling out membership, establishing work plans and policy priorities. Documents obtained by CRN and New Times demon- strate that Clark’s guidance that day helped set the tone and trajectory of plans and policies the group would produce for Trump’s Resolute Desk. >> p 13 09 Jeffrey Clark in October 2020. (Yuri Gripas-Pool/Getty Images) Jeffrey Clark’s booking photo from his indictment in Fulton County, Georgia. (Fulton County Sheriff’s Office) Insurrectionist Brunch from p 6
