"Why should I be limited… just because someone has made an accusation?" said Rep. Scott Perry

REP. SCOTT PERRY, who the Jan. 6 committee said sought a pardon for his involvement in attempts to overturn the 2020 election, wants to turn the tables on the panel that investigated him now that the Republicans have gained a majority in the House.

“Why should I be limited… just because someone has made an accusation?” Perry told This Week host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday when he asked if Perry would pledge not to serve on the investigation into the Jan. 6 committee.

Perry, who leads the House Freedom Caucus that claims members such as Reps. Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz, dismissed Stephanopoulos’ concerns, saying, “Everybody in America is innocent until proven otherwise. I would say this, the American people are really, really tired of the persecution and instruments of federal power being used against them.”

When Stephanopoulos pointed out that it might be a conflict of interest for Perry to join the House GOP investigation of the Jan. 6 committee, Perry responded, “So should everybody in Congress that disagrees with somebody be barred from doing the oversight and investigative powers that Congress has? … I get accused of all kinds of things every single day, as does every member that serves in the public eye.”

According to news reports and the Jan. 6 investigation, Perry was closely involved in the efforts to subvert democracy and declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election, even though the former president lost by millions of votes. And former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Perry spoke to her directly about requesting a pardon from Trump.

This past August, Perry sued the Department of Justice for seizing his cell phone following its raid on Trump DOJ official Jeffrey Clark. The Jan. 6 panel has claimed that it had information “from multiple witnesses” detailing Perry’s involvement in an attempt to install Clark, a Trump loyalist, as acting attorney general during the final months of the Trump administration. Text messages between Perry and Trump’s then-chief of staff Mark Meadows released by the committee showed that Perry pressed Meadows to contact Clark. In December, the Jan. 6 panel recommended launching a formal ethics inquiry against Republican lawmakers, including Perry, who refused to cooperate with its investigation.

“Their willful noncompliance violates multiple standards of conduct and subjects them to discipline,” the committee wrote in its final report.

Source: Peter Wade/Rollingstone.com

Date Posted: Monday, January 9th, 2023 , Total Page Views: 396