Thursday, December 07, 2023

Scott Perry, Insurrection facilitaror? Or just a garden variety House Republican dork mixing with schemers?

Scott Perry had his cell phone seized by the FBI, downloaded and returned, going on FOX harumphing after it happened, this video, but not letting on about any knowledge of what the FBI expected to find. What that was, this video. Perry has a Wikipedia page, stating in part:

Perry frequently opposes proposed climate change policies in Congress, including policies which have support within the GOP.[82] In 2021 Perry introduced a bill to rescind U.S. participation in the treaty guiding international efforts to address global warming, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.[83] During 2023 testimony before the Foreign Affairs committee by the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, Perry presented charts that he said showed climate change had stopped since 2016. This position is sharply at odds with the scientific consensus on climate change.[84][85]

Involvement in attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Perry was "one of the leading figures in the effort to throw out Pennsylvania’s votes in the 2020 presidential election."[86]

After the election, Perry promoted false claims of election fraud.[87][88] Days after the election, in text messages to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Perry suggested John Ratcliffe should direct the National Security Agency to investigate alleged Chinese hacking. Perry also asserted "the Brits" were behind a conspiracy to manipulate voting machines and that CIA director Gina Haspel was covering it up. The next month, he sent Meadows a link to a YouTube video that asserted voting machines had been manipulated via satellite from Italy; Meadows later sent the video to former Acting Attorney General Richard Donoghue, seeking an investigation.[89][90][91] Donoghue told the committee the contentions in the video, originating from QAnon and far-right platforms which had been brought to the White House, were "pure insanity."[92]

Perry was one of 126 Republican House members to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated Trump.[93][94]

[It was Mike Johnson who authored the mediocre brief Perry signed onto.]

Perry reportedly played a key role in a December 2020 crisis at the Justice Department, in which Trump considered firing Jeffrey A. Rosen and replacing him with Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the Civil Division of the DOJ.[88] According to The Los Angeles Times, Perry "prompted" Trump to consider the replacement.[95] The New York Times reported that Perry introduced Clark to Trump because Clark's "openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president's efforts to undo them."[88] Before the certification of the electoral college vote on January 6, Perry and Clark reportedly discussed a plan in which the Justice Department would send Georgia legislators a letter suggesting the DOJ had evidence of voter fraud and suggesting the legislators invalidate Georgia's electoral votes, even though the DOJ had investigated reports of fraud but found nothing significant, as attorney general Bill Barr had publicly announced weeks earlier.[88][96] Clark drafted a letter to Georgia officials and presented it to Rosen and his deputy Donoghue. It claimed the DOJ had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States" and urged the Georgia legislature to convene a special session for the "purpose of considering issues pertaining to the appointment of Presidential Electors." Rosen and Donoghue rejected the proposal.[97] In August 2021, CNN reported that Ratcliffe had briefed top Justice Department officials that no evidence had been found of any foreign powers' interference with voting machines. Clark was reportedly concerned that intelligence community analysts were withholding information and believed Perry and others knew more about possible foreign interference. Clark requested authorization from Rosen and Donoghue for another briefing from Ratcliffe, asserting hackers had found that "a Dominion machine accessed the Internet through a smart thermostat with a net connection trail leading back to China."[98]

On January 6, 2021, Perry joined Missouri senator Josh Hawley in objecting to counting Pennsylvania's electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election.[99] During the storming of the U.S. Capitol that day, Perry and his congressional colleagues were ushered to a secure location.[100]

On December 20, 2021, House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack chairman Bennie Thompson wrote to Perry asking him to provide information about his involvement in the effort to install Clark as acting attorney general. Thompson believed Perry had been involved in the effort to install Clark, given previous testimony from Rosen and Donoghue, as well as communications between Perry and Meadows.[101][102][103] Perry declined the request the next day, asserting the committee was illegitimate.[104] Among several text messages to Meadows the committee released on December 14 was one attributed to a "member of Congress" dated January 5 that read "Please check your signal", a reference to the encrypted messaging system Signal. In his letter to Perry, Thompson mentioned evidence that Perry had communicated with Meadows using Signal, though Perry denied sending that particular text message.[105][106][102] CNN acquired and published additional Meadows text messages in April 2022 that confirmed Perry had sent that message.[89]

On June 9, 2022, Select Committee member Liz Cheney asserted that Perry requested a presidential pardon from Trump in the weeks after the January 6 attack.[107][108] Perry denied Cheney's assertion, calling it "an absolute, shameless, and soulless lie".[109] On June 23, 2022, the Select Committee broadcast testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Meadows, who said Perry was one of several lawmakers who contacted her to "inquire about preemptive pardons."[110] In response, Perry said he had never spoken with any White House staff about a pardon for him or any other members of Congress.[111][91]

Those who've watched the two videos may think this Wiki info is repetitious, but it is worth having text as well as video. Search = scott perry jeff clark insurrection contacts.

The Wiki entry continues:

In August 2022, Perry reported that three FBI agents had seized his cellphone after presenting him with a warrant. He called the seizure an "unnecessary and aggressive action".[112] Perry asked Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court Beryl Howell to prevent investigators from accessing 2,219 documents stored on his phone, citing the Speech or Debate Clause of the U.S. Constitution. On February 24, 2023 Howell unsealed her December 2022 ruling that found Perry had an "astonishing view" of his immunity, ordering him to disclose 2,055 of the documents, including all 960 of his contacts with members of the executive branch.[113] The ruling was subject to appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and perhaps the Supreme Court.[114]

BOTTOM LINE: Perry was in communication with Clark at DOJ about the idea of installing Clark as DOJ head, then trying to insert the bogus elector slates, but senior DOJ officials threatened to quit if the bad idea was implemented. Such a resignation pattern would have told the world that DOJ insiders opposed the plan.

The main fruit from the tree was that Clark and Perry were communicating about a draft writing approved by Trump himself and about Trump's general participation in the Clark putsch planning. Thus showing Trump was the ultimate decision maker, where underlings proposed the DOJ putsch while Patel was being installed at DOD, so that Trump was clearly planning at the point in time when Perry's phone showed the Clark texting aimed to thwart the Biden installation to the Presidency any way Trump and crew could. House Republican involvement in the effort was clear in time, with Perry and Clark conspiring.

From X (a/k/a Twitter) -

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GAIwneFX0AAcT1w?format=jpg&name=medium