Democratic Leaders Call on US Rep. Perry to Resign Over Involvement in Trump Scheme

Gov. Tom Wolf called Perry’s involvement a “disgrace.”

US Rep. Scott Perry (R-Dauphin) has confirmed he was the Pennsylvania lawmaker who connected former President Donald Trump with a low-level Department of Justice lawyer in an attempt to overturn November’s presidential election, according to WITF.

The revelation was first reported in a series of stories by The New York Times over the weekend. 

Several prominent Democrats have called on Perry, a five-term congressman, to resign or face consequences because of his involvement. 

The New York Times Stories

The first story, posted Friday night, reported on efforts by Trump and Jeffrey Clark, an attorney in the Department of Justice, to force Georgia to overturn its election results. 

Even if it did so, Joe Biden would have still had enough votes to become president. 

However, the plan was still brought to acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who refused to comply. 

According to the Times, Trump considered firing Rosen and replacing him with Clark. That plan was halted when other department officials threatened mass resignations.

“Their informal pact ultimately helped persuade Mr. Trump to keep Mr. Rosen in place, calculating that a furor over mass resignations at the top of the Justice Department would eclipse any attention on his baseless accusations of voter fraud,” the Times reported. 

What got some Pennsylvania politcos’ attention was a paragraph deeper in the story:

“As Mr. Rosen and the deputy attorney general, Richard P. Donoghue, pushed back, they were unaware that Mr. Clark had been introduced to Mr. Trump by a Pennsylvania politician and had told the president that he agreed that fraud had affected the election results.” 

Pennsylvania Political Twitter tried to guess who the legislator was.

It didn’t have to wait long to find out.

By Saturday afternoon, the Times outed Perry.

“It was Mr. Perry, a member of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, who first made Mr. Trump aware that a relatively obscure Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division, was sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s view that the election had been stolen, according to former administration officials who spoke with Mr. Clark and Mr. Trump,” the Times reported.

“Mr. Perry introduced the president to Mr. Clark, whose openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president’s efforts to undo them.”

Why Scott Perry’s Role Is Important  

Trump’s second impeachment concerns the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in DC. One of the driving forces in that attack was the rhetoric by Trump and other elected officials, like Perry, who peddled misinformation and lies about the 2020 presidential election.

Joe Biden won that election and was sworn in on Jan. 20. Trump and his allies lost 61 of 62 lawsuits. Now, one of the companies Trump and his allies cast doubt on has filed a $1.3 billion lawsuit against Rudy Guiliani.  

Prominent Democrats and Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have criticized those who have pushed the conspiracy theories. 

Perry has been a prominent proponent of that language. 

• He has actively questioned the election results and promoted conspiracy theories on social media.
• He voted against certifying his own state’s election results.
• Perry was one of nine Pennsylvania congressmen to vote against impeachment.

The Department of Justice is now investigating the matter to see if current or former employees did anything wrong.