Former Justice Department official and Fulton County conspiracy case defendant Jeffrey Clark was the subject of much mockery on Tuesday for the demands he made to a judge in Georgia regarding his pending arraignment on conspiracy charges in connection with the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Clark is one of 18 people besides former President Donald Trump who have been indicted by a Fulton County grand jury on multiple felony charges, including violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, over schemes on multiple fronts to keep Trump in the White House despite his election loss to Joe Biden.
Politico reporter Kyle Cheney posted a link Tuesday on Twitter to a legal document from Clark’s attorney asking for an emergency stay on the charges because he wants to avoid “the choice of making rushed travel arrangements to fly into Atlanta or instead risking being labeled a fugitive.”
Clark is also trying to switch the proceedings from a state court to a federal one, in part because Georgia law does not allow governors to pardon criminal defendants.
Clark demanded a response by 5 p.m. Tuesday, a request that is more common for a Justice Department attorney to make than a man accused of attempting to subvert the peaceful transfer of power.
And he’s whining about making “rushed travel arrangements” even though he’s known about the reporting date since Aug. 14, when District Attorney Fani Willis announced the indictment.
Many legal and political experts mocked Clark’s request ― as well as Clark in general. Clark, who had led the DOJ’s civil division, pushed to be named acting attorney general at the end of Trump’s term in a last-ditch effort to overturn the election with a scheme to replace state-certified electors.
Former FBI officer Peter Strzok hoped “that we might all one day enjoy the entitlement of a mediocre middle aged white man.”
He added that he’s “looking forward to the Adventures of Smokey and the Underwear Bandit beginning Friday afternoon,” a reference to an incident in June 2022, when the FBI executed a search warrant on Clark’s home in the early morning hours, which led to viral bodycam footage of Clark in his underwear.
Clark seems to have had a hard time adjusting to being indicted.
Besides whining about having to buy plane tickets from Washington to Atlanta, last week he bizarrely blamed the arrest not on his own actions but on “witches, spiritists, mediums, those with spirit animals, and Ukrainian NPCs.”