The House select Committee investigating the January 6 attack against the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C., has asked Trump loyalist Rep. Scott Perry (R.Pennsylvania), to provide documents and testify about the events. This is the first instance of such a request from a sitting member.
The January 6 commission announced on MondayIt was asking Perry information about his ties to the events that occurred on the day that a mob of Trump loyalists broke into the Capitol building to disrupt the certification for the 2020 presidential election.
Perry stated Tuesday that he would not comply with the commission’s request. In his statement announcing the decision, he said that he did NOT respect the authority of that commission to examine the events leading to the attack at the Capitol.
“I stand with immense respect for our Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the Americans I represent who know that this entity is illegitimate, and not duly constituted under the rules of the US House of Representatives,” Perry said in a tweet.
Perry, himself a staunch devotee of the former president, was also asked to appear before the commission to discuss his involvement in a scheme to replace then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen (who refused to entertain Trump’s false claims of election fraud), with Jeffrey Clark, a Department of Justice (DOJ) official who appeared willing to go along with Trump’s lies.
“We have received evidence from multiple witnesses that you had an important role in the efforts to install Mr. Clark as acting Attorney General,” a letter from the commission’s chair, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Mississippi), said to Perry.
Perry is alleged to have been the one who actually reportedly helped Trump to connect with ClarkIn the first place. As The New York Times This was reported last week Perry was considered the “de facto sergeant”Who coordinated with others in the plan to replace Rosen and Clark. A previous report from Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee also noted that Perry’s role in Trump’s attempts to alter the election results was “particularly notable.”
According to The New York Times, Perry had also pressed Richard Donoghue, another high-ranking DOJ official who was skeptical of election fraud claims from Trump’s camp, to allow Clark to investigate the election. Perry told Donogue that he had compiled a dossier allegedly full of evidence of election fraud, which Clark could “do something” with.
Trump himself had attempted to use the DOJ’s power to stop the certification of the Electoral College. Rosen was directly notified about the plot.
“Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen,” Trump said in a phone call to Rosen in December, according to Rosen’s notes.
In his letter to Perry, Thompson also noted that the commission had received evidence from other witnesses that Perry had sent messages to Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows regarding attempts to keep the former president in office — including some messages that were encrypted. (Meadows was found in contempt by Congressearlier in the month for refusing to testify before January 6th commission regarding documents he had already disclosed.
Perry was informed by the chairperson of the commission that they planned to discuss these topics with Clark but that Clark had invoked the 5th Amendment right against self incrimination.
“When Mr. Clark decided to invoke his 5th Amendment rights, he understood that we planned to pose questions addressing his interactions with you, among a host of other topics,” Thompson wrote.
The request from the commission for Perry to provide documents and testify before investigators is not a compulsory one — Perry isn’t currently being subpoenaedHe can also decline the request. It also indicates that the commission may make similar requests to other members in the future, possibly via subpoenas to them, regarding their knowledge and participation in the attack against the Capitol and the attempts in keeping Trump in office, despite Joe Biden’s obvious loss in 2020.
Perry is being requested by the commission to meet them sometime in the last week of December or in the first two weeks of January. The letter stated that Perry can be contacted by investigators in Washington, D.C., either at the Capitol or in his home area, whichever he prefers.
