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After the FBI seized the cell phone of Rep. Scott Perry, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who pushed former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud, all eyes are on Trump’s latest ally to face the scrutiny of federal law enforcement.
Perry’s cell phone was seized Tuesday as part of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the use of fake voters to try to overturn President Biden’s victory, according to a person familiar with the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the phone seizure.
Perry is the first known member of Congress to have his phone seized as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into last year’s attempt at the U.S. Capitol to overturn the 2020 presidential results. choice
Perry did not say why investigators seized his phone and wrote in a statement Monday that the contents of his phone are “not the government’s business.”
While Perry called the seizure of his phone and Monday’s FBI search of Trump’s personal safe at his Mar-a-Lago home “banana republic tactics” and the work of a Justice Department too aggressive, Republican members of Congress were also subjected to FBI searches and seizures in the Trump era. Federal investigators seized Sen. Richard Burr’s (NC) cell phone in 2020 while investigating stock trades he made before the coronavirus pandemic briefly plunged the market.
Rep. Scott Perry says the FBI seized his phone while he was traveling
Perry, a five-term congressman who last fall became chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is known as much for his strong support for Trump as for his history of promoting baseless conspiracies on issues ranging from terrorism to coronavirus to the killing of democrats. Seth Rich, National Committee staffer.
Long before accepting Trump’s bogus election claims, Rep. Scott Perry promoted baseless theories
For months, Perry has been on the radar of the House select committee investigating the Capitol riots. Last December, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee’s chairman, sent Perry a letter asking for information about his effort to help install a little-known Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark in the role of acting attorney. general The committee in July detailed the plan, which involved Trump firing then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and replacing him with Clark, who would then use his power to encourage key states won by Joe Biden to send alternative electoral votes pro-Trump.
At the committee’s Jan. 6-June 23 hearing, witnesses described how President Donald Trump pressured the Justice Department to investigate voter fraud. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post, Photo: Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post)
A select committee report determined that Perry introduced Clark to Trump; he also cited evidence that Perry communicated repeatedly with Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff, about Clark.
Perry quickly declined the committee’s request to provide voluntary submissions and testimony.
The 60-year-old congressman, who now represents Pennsylvania’s 10th congressional district, resisted calls for his resignation after reports of his involvement in efforts to overturn election results, including his public objection to Congress counting Pennsylvania’s electoral votes for Biden.
“When votes are taken by unconstitutional means, without fair and equal protection for all, the only result can be an illegitimate result,” Perry told the House after the attack on the Capitol on 6 of January 2021.
Not only did Perry accept Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent, he promoted some of the more outlandish claims, including one that a former Justice Department official called “sheer lunacy.”
The Washington Post previously reported that Perry “was at the heart” of bringing to Trump’s attention the so-called “Italygate” conspiracy, which claimed that an Italian defense contractor conspired with the CIA to use military satellites to change Trump’s votes for Biden’s. .
“Why can’t we just work with the Italian government?” Perry asked in a Dec. 21, 2020 text message to Meadows, according to the Jan. 6 committee.
Richard Donoghue, Rosen’s former deputy when he was acting attorney general, called the theory “sheer lunacy” and “patently absurd.”
Perry’s diligent efforts on Trump’s behalf also reportedly include seeking a preemptive pardon in the event of any criminal liability stemming from his efforts to overturn the election. During testimony before the House select committee in June, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former maxim aide to Meadows, said Perry was among five Republican lawmakers who advanced Trump’s stolen election claim and also sought pardons.
Perry has denied seeking a pardon, issuing a statement after Hutchinson’s testimony saying, “I never sought a presidential pardon for myself or any other member of Congress.”
Hutchinson testified that Perry spoke directly to him about a pardon, which Perry also denied.
“At no time did I speak to Miss Hutchinson, a White House planner, or to any White House staff about a pardon for me or any other member of Congress, that never happened,” Perry told the june
Perry has spent 15 years representing Pennsylvania, first as a state legislator and then as a congressman in a career that for several years overlapped with his service in the state’s Army National Guard. He also sits on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, according to his official. Biography of the house.
Perry has consistently voted with some of the most far-right members of Congress, opposing impeachment of Trump, the Violence Against Women Act and the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act. intended to protect Asian Americans who faced an increase in attacks during the coronavirus pandemic. But the congressman has on occasion broken with those conventions, including his recent vote in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which would protect same-sex and interracial marriage at the federal level.
Perry is up for re-election in November, two years after being redistricted to Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District, which includes Hershey, Pennsylvania.
If Republicans gain control of the House after the midterm elections, the Freedom Caucus, which Perry now leads, is expected to play a major role in selecting the next House speaker.
Devlin Barrett and Perry Stein contributed to this report.