(Bloomberg) — The first lawmaker publicly asked to meet with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol refused the request and called the panel “illegitimate.”
The snub by Republican Representative Scott Perry, an ally of former President Donald Trump, underscores the deepening partisan tensions over the direction of the committee’s investigation, and raises the possibility of new legal showdowns.
Perry had been asked in a letter Monday from committee chairman Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat, to voluntarily sit down for an interview and turn over documents.
“I decline this entity’s request and will continue to fight the failures of the radical Left who desperately seek distraction from their abject failures of crushing inflation, a humiliating surrender in Afghanistan, and the horrendous crisis they created at our border,” Perry tweeted Tuesday.
Perry added in a separate tweet that he stands with “the Americans I represent who know that this entity is illegitimate, and not duly constituted under the U.S. House of Representatives.”
A spokesman for the committee said that multiple federal courts have already rejected Trump’s claims in related other legal actions that the Jan. 6 committee lacks a legitimate legislative purpose.
“The Select Committee prefers to gather relevant evidence from members cooperatively, but if members with directly relevant information decline to cooperate and instead endeavor to cover up, the Select Committee will consider seeking such information using other tools,” the spokesman, Tim Mulvey, said in a statement. The statement didn’t specify the other options.
Perry’s refusal likely sets the tone for how other congressional Republicans who had contact with Trump or his inner circle in the days leading up to, or on the day of, the attack, may respond to the committee’s requests for information.
At least two of those Republicans, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, have acknowledged telephone calls on Jan. 6 with Trump.
Perry that day had introduced the objection to counting Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College in a failed attempt to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, even after rioters stormed Capitol Hill that day.
The committee is particularly interested in Perry’s involvement in or knowledge of Trump’s efforts to install then-acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark as head of the Justice Department to lead that agency in challenging the 2020 presidential election results.
“The Select Committee has tremendous respect for the prerogatives of Congress and the privacy of its Members. At the same time, we have a solemn responsibility to investigate fully all of these facts and circumstances,” Thompson wrote.
The panel of seven Democrats and two Republicans has received evidence “from multiple witnesses that you had an important role in the efforts to install Mr. Clark as acting Attorney General,” the letter says. It says that Perry had “multiple text and other communications” with Trump’s then-White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, including some using the encrypted Signal app.
Perry’s status as a sitting member of Congress could add legal hurdles to any efforts to subpoena him. But the panel has not been shy about legal remedies against others not in Congress.
Clark already is a target of potential criminal contempt of Congress action by the committee, which is waiting to see whether he answers questions in a closed-door deposition. Trump adviser Steve Bannon is awaiting trial after being indicted for contempt after refusing to testify to the Jan. 6 panel. And last week, the House held Meadows in contempt and referred the matter to the Justice Department.
(Updates with panel response in new fifth, sixth paragraphs)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
