PA Congressman Scott Perry “Deeply Involved” in Jan 6 Planning, New Evidence Suggests

Late last week, the January 6 select committee filed new deposition excerpts in federal court. Those excerpts contain some revealing information about Trump’s pre-insurrection “inner circle” and the activities they engaged in as they plotted to overturn the 2020 election and stop a duly elected president from taking office.

The filing — which is part of an effort to compel former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to testify before the committee — suggests that several of Trump’s top allies in Congress took part in meetings, either in person or by phone, in which strategies to prevent the then President-elect from taking office were formed and implemented.

Among the strategies discussed at these meetings was a plan to replace key leaders at the Justice Department with people who would sow doubt in the results of the election and question its legitimacy. Another sought to convince former Vice President Mike Pence to unlawfully challenge the electoral count and, according to the testimony of Meadows’ aide Cassidy Hutchinson, “send votes back to the states or the electors back to the states.”

According to the texts revealed in the filing, Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Scott Perry enthusiastically engaged in this process:

“Mark, just checking in as time continues to count down. 11 days to 1/6 and 25 days to inauguration,” Perry texted. “We gotta get going!”

Perry has a long history of supporting the “Big Lie” and undermining the legitimacy of the 2020 election, so this new filing, which puts him in the room with Trump acolytes like Jim Jordan (R-OH), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) comes as little surprise to those following the plot.

However, the scale of the plot, and the coordination involved suggests very little that occurred on January 6, 2021 was unexpected. It looks instead as if it went down (almost) exactly as planned.

As more evidence comes out, the plan that turned into the January 6 insurrection is becoming more clear, and with public hearings starting up in the next few weeks, we are likely to learn much more about what Scott Perry knew, when he knew it, and what would have happened to democracy in America if his plan had succeeded.