Harrisburg area congressman Scott Perry is at the center of the latest revelation about former President Donald J. Trump’s refusal to accept President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory last fall and seemingly endless schemes Trump to try to undo it.
Perry was identified in a New York Times report on Saturday night as the person who introduced Trump to a senior US Department of Justice lawyer who was open to Trump’s unproven allegations of electoral fraud and, according to the report. of the Times, may be interested in providing a bypass for the older leaders who firmly rejected them.
In a previous report on Friday, the Times described the scheme revolving around attorney Jeffrey Clark, in which Trump apparently discussed dismissing acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen in the last days of his administration, replacing him with Clark and seeing whether that could juice to block Biden’s victory at the state or federal levels.
Biden took office on January 20.
Clark, at the time the alleged conspiracy was taking place, was the acting deputy attorney general for the Civil Justice Division. The Times also reported that he is saying that some aspects of the Times’ reports on the situation – based on interviews with four other DOJ officials – are incorrect.
Clark also told The Times that he could not discuss any conversations with Mr. Trump or the Justice Department lawyers because of “restrictions on legal privilege … Senior Justice Department lawyers often provide legal advice to the White House as part of our obligations, “he said. “All of my official communications were consistent with the law.”
Perry, a conservative Republican from northern York County who has just been re-elected for his fifth term in the House of Representatives, did not respond to text or phone messages left by PennLive on Saturday, left for the first time in an effort to determine whether he it could have been the unidentified “Pennsylvania politician” that the Times identified as the channel between Clark and Trump in its initial report.
As a result, it was unclear on Saturday night what Perry’s role was in the Trump – Clark conversations, if any, in addition to first introducing Clark to the president as someone who, as the Times reported, “agreed that the fraud had affected the results of the elections. “
The Times, in its report, also said it did not get any response from Perry.
In e-mail responses to a question from PennLive about whether he accepted Biden’s election last week, Perry said yes, although he still had fundamental problems with how the election was run in Pennsylvania.
In fact, he was the leader of the fight to annul Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral college votes in the House earlier this month, hours after police and National Guard members claimed the US Capitol from pro-Trump mobs that they had attacked violently. the building during the Congress session on January 6.
Here is Perry’s e-mail response to PennLive on January 15 about whether he had doubts about the validity of Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania.
“Whether you identify yourself as a Republican, Democrat, Independent or otherwise, American voters must trust that their vote has been counted and equally trust that no illegal vote has voided their voice. This is not – and never was – about a person or achieving a particular outcome. It is a mission to guarantee the preservation of the very heart of our Republic – a free and fair election.
“There are still unresolved issues that will be examined in the coming weeks by the House of Pennsylvania and the courts. In the end, what we should all hope for is that all inhabitants of Pennsylvania will be able to look each other in the eye and know, without a doubt, that their elections are safe and that their voices are equally heard.
“Although our objection, as prescribed by the Constitution, ultimately failed, the constitutional concerns of my constituents were recognized by the Mayor and presented to our nation in accordance with the sacrosanct process intended by our Founders and codified by the Constitution. Congress maintained its duty, and Joe Biden was certified as president-elect of the 2020 election.
“I accept the results and have always respected the Office of the President of the United States – regardless of who occupies it. However, I fully intend to continue to work with my colleagues at the state and federal levels to strengthen electoral integrity to ensure that these constitutional abuses never happen again. We simply must have – and restore – faith and confidence in our electoral system. The future of our Republic and the millions of Americans who fought and sacrificed for it deserve nothing less. “
In the end, the effort to replace Rosen with Clark was abandoned. The Times report said that this was because virtually the entire category of senior Justice Department managers learned of the effort and indicated that they would resign en masse, and Trump ended up worrying that this mass exodus would further hamper his efforts smaller and smaller to stay in the office.
For a lawmaker who is willing to shoot from the start, has left him regularly exposed to ridicule by critics and left even a few supporters cringe, the latest episode could put Perry on national radar to a great extent.
Next month, Trump will be tried in the U.S. Senate for impeachment articles that blame him for inciting Capitol violence this month. And the plot to execute an 11-hour change at the Justice Department – which seemed particularly focused on attacking Biden’s Georgia election victory – could add to the argument that Trump was willing to do anything to hold on to the post.
A rising Democrat was already asking Perry to resign on Saturday night: “Scott Perry, this is not your first time being a national constraint, but make it the last – resign,” said Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia.
And Attorney General Josh Shapiro fired a tweet asking for “consequences” for Perry’s actions.
Leading Republicans who spoke to PennLive earlier on Saturday, and were unaware of Perry’s involvement in the DOJ scheme, said that Trump’s fascination with reversing Georgia’s results seemed to come from the fact that defeat took his campaign by surprise. , and was the closest to the oscillation states.
The Trump campaign seemed to have hoped, they added, that if they succeeded in blocking Georgia, other states would follow suit until the majority of Biden’s polling station was overturned.
The Times story on Saturday night that identified the “Pennsylvania politician” as Perry wrote about him and Clark in the context that their involvement showed how Trump, in his final weeks, was increasingly willing to give audiences to officials from lower level when his superiors or the elected leadership was not telling him what he wanted to hear.
It was unclear how or when Perry met Clark, a Philadelphia native, but someone who spent most of his professional career working in Washington DC, either in a private practice or in the Justice Department.
Telephone messages left by PennLive at Clark’s residence in Fairfax County, Virginia, on Saturday also went unanswered.