Midstate congressman Scott Perry was the first lawmaker the House Jan. 6th Select Committee tried to talk to because of the key role they say he played in trying to help Trump remain in power despite losing the 2020 election.
When Perry refused to cooperate, the committee issued a subpoena for his testimony earlier this year, which he refused.
Perry is among five House Republicans who have been subpoenaed by the committee for their testimony. The others are Kevin McCarthy of California, Andy Biggs from Arizona, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Mo Brooks of Alabama.
The committee holds its final public hearing Monday and is expected to release its full report Wednesday.
Committee member Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California, told CNN last week that they will address Perry’s decision during Monday’s hearing.
“We are very concerned that members of Congress that we issued subpoenas to — because they have relevant information — refuse to comply,” she said. “And that’s a legal obligation.”
When the committee releases its final report it is expected to make at least three criminal referrals against former President Donald Trump to the Department of Justice. They would include obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the federal government, and insurrection, according to CNN.
Scott Perry’s texts central to investigation
Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows turned over his text log while briefly cooperating with the committee in 2021.
Perry encouraged Meadows to talk to Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice who was sympathetic to Trump’s voter fraud lies. The two planned to advocate for Clark’s promotion to attorney general. A U.S. Senate report said Clark planned to say the DOJ was investigating Georgia’s election results, despite no evidence to warrant a probe.
Some texts have been revealed by the committee, including one exchange from Dec. 26, 2020, in which Perry texted Meadows: “Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down. 11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration. We gotta get going!”
More texts between the two were published last week by Talking Points Memo.
They show Perry and Meadows coordinated to secure election machines following the 2020 election – based on conspiracy theories about election fraud.
“And the Department of Justice will have all of those [texts],” Lofgren said.
Perry sent Meadow instructions to put voting machines “under lock and key,” to preserve evidence of any potential voter fraud or crimes.
“Mark, these are instructions are [sic] from the cyber forensic team,” one text reads. “Please ensure widest dissemination and action.”
Perry’s instructions to “every state senior” included locking up voting machines, preserving all communications from elected officials responsible for the machines, and all software logs and devices from the affected precincts.
Widener University Commonwealth Law professor Quinn Yeargain says these new texts paint a fuller picture of how Perry helped advance Trump’s fake electors scheme.
“It contextualizes why Perry was so reluctant to turn over his phone,” they said. “They certainly paint a picture of a conspiracy to attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”
Yeargain says Perry should be held accountable for trying to secure election machines based on election security conspiracy theories.
“And when that belief motivates you to engage in illegal behavior, then we need to draw a line in the sand and not allow that,” they said. “And we need to keep open the possibility that people who conspired like this can and indeed should face criminal charges for what they did.”
If Perry is prosecuted, Yeargain says Perry might argue his actions were justified because he believed election fraud claims.
“But at the end of the day, it does really articulate quite clearly his intent,” they said. “And his intent here was to conspire to systematically overturn [2020 election] results.”
Yeargain said they’re not sure how these texts relate to the broader criminal investigations into former President Trump that are underway at the Department of Justice.
“There are going to be a lot of people potentially who get swept up in charges,” they said. “It’s hard to say how Perry fits into this.”
Some of Perry’s emails were turned over to federal investigators
In August, the FBI seized Perry’s phone and made a copy of its contents.
A federal judge on Friday unsealed an opinion that ruled 37 emails Perry sent to Trump-connected attorneys were not protected by attorney/client privilege.
Without that privilege, the court order states, the emails could be turned over to federal investigators.
They include 19 exchanges between Perry and Clark,.
Other emails include conversations with Clark aide Ken Klukowski and Trump’s former attorney John Eastman.
Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell unsealed the June ruling at the request of the Department of Justice.
That ruling reveals the FBI seized at least 133,000 emails from Perry’s phone, which were each reviewed by a “filter team” composed of DOJ employees uninvolved with the investigation.
Dickinson College President John Jones, a former federal judge in the Middle District of Pennsylvania, said the filter team was necessary.
“They scrutinize every one of the questionable emails to see whether or not they’re covered by a privilege that would keep them from the investigators,” Jones said. “It was not unusual for the congressman to assert blanket privilege, because it’s just easier to do.”
The DOJ declined an email request to comment.
“[The timing] is going to be viewed by some as nefarious and questionable. But I don’t think it’s that,” Jones said. “I think they’re basically saying, ‘Look, the work is done. There’s no reason that the Department of Justice investigators involved in the case and the public can’t see these emails.’”
Jones, a George W. Bush appointee, said the judge ruled the emails were “non-substantive,” meaning they don’t contain information relevant to any ongoing investigation.
“Like anybody else who emails,” Jones said. “I’m sure there’s a lot of junk in there.”
It’s unclear which investigations involve Perry’s emails, and neither he nor Trump have been charged with a crime.
Trump’s former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon was found guilty of two counts of contempt of Congress for his failure to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Select Committee.
The final scheduled hearing from the House January 6th Select Committee will air Monday at 1 p.m. on WESA-FM and streaming online.
