CNN’s Perez and Coates Push Back When Chris Wallace Asks ‘Why on Earth is it Only Now’ DoJ is Acting on Jan. 6 Figures

CNN anchor Chris Wallace got some pushback from CNN correspondent Evan Perez and legal analyst Laura Coates when he asked “why on Earth is it only now” that the Justice Department is taking certain actions over Jan. 6.

On Thursday afternoon’s edition of CNN Newsroom, Perez broke the news that DoJ investigators raided home of Jeffrey Clark, the Department of Justice official former President Donald Trump wanted to install as acting Attorney General to help him overturn the 2020 presidential election — and who received a now-infamous kiss-off during a White House meeting.

During the ensuing panel segment, CNN analyst Gloria Borger read said kiss-off — “You’re an environmental lawyer. How about you go back to your office? We’ll call you when there’s an oil spill.” — and declared it her personal favorite.

Wallace concurred, then expressed surprise that the raid and the subpoenas for the fake electors were so long in coming:

CHRIS WALLACE: Here’s what I don’t understand about this. This episode involving Jeffrey Clark, and even specifically what happened on January 3rd, is really been gone over. The Senate Judiciary Committee already held a whole series of hearings and these quotes– And I have to say, that’s my favorite quote of the whole episode. Go back, we’ll talk. We’ll call you when there’s an oil show. I’ve been told that too, go back to your office. We’ll call you when there’s an oil spill. I mean, this is plowed ground. So my question is, why on earth is it only now that the Justice Department or the FBI is going and raiding Jeffrey Clarke’s house? I mean, we’ve known about this for months. We were discussing on New Day today, Kaitlan, this morning the fact that just the Justice Department is now issuing subpoenas to some of the fake electors. Again, this is something we’ve known about for months. Why–

GLORIA BORGER: They’ve been busy, you know?

LAURA COATES: Well, I mean, you very well have done this before. That’s part of the issue here, what we’re seeing.

CHRIS WALLACE: Well they didn’t search Jeffrey Clark’s house before–

Coates and Perez each pushed back on Wallace, for different reasons:

LAURA COATES: Maybe there’s new information that’s come to light from someone who’s now about to testify to say, oh, by the way, there might be evidence of this, but we didn’t see it the first time around. Is there another cell phone, a sort of burner phone of some kind? Is there other documents it would have been in your possession that you did not hand over? It was not electronic in some way, did you not, did you take something away from the DOJ that you should have taken away when you left the office? All these possibilities are there.

But I totally understand the point of saying this feels a little bit like a either cleanup crew or Johnny come lately. But remember, Congress has the role of trying to avoid being viewed as partisan with the sword of Damocles of the general elections ahead of them. But DOJ has the problem of trying to get enough in and done before they have to stop because they’re so close to an election. Well, I think there is protocol that says we can’t keep muddying our hands because it might actually persuade the electors.

EVAN PEREZ: I think to Chris’s point, I think. I don’t think you can interpret the lack of visible action right until now to mean that there was nothing happening. I think, you know, certainly I’ve heard over the period of months that there was some kind of investigation. We don’t know exactly what is being investigated. We don’t know what possible crime they’re looking at here. But, you know, they’ve had to look at documents, they’ve had to look at, talk to witnesses. They have a number of people who they’ve they’ve talked to before they can take an extraordinary step like this.

Watch above via CNN.