Lawyers for Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general under former President Donald Trump, appeared in court Monday in an attempt to move his Georgia election interference case to federal court. Clark and other co-defendants like Mark Meadows have pushed to move their cases, arguing they were acting as federal government employees at the time of the alleged offenses. But, according to CNN, a “frustrated and annoyed” U.S. District Judge Steve Jones grilled Clark’s attorneys to such an extent that one of Trump’s attorneys, who was in the courtroom, muttered, “This is not good.” Clark is accused, among other things, of writing a post-election letter to Georgia election officials that made bogus claims of irregularities. Jones grilled Clark’s attorney on why Clark included such claims when his superiors at the Justice Department told him they were false. Similarly, former DOJ official Jody Hunt testified that Clark’s division didn’t even have the authority to investigate election fraud. Clark was allowed to skip Monday’s hearing but that appeared to be a bad decision, too, when Jones said he wouldn’t accept a sworn statement from Clark as evidence. Jones will issue a ruling at a later date.
