THE FALSE CLAIMS OF PENNSYLVALIA REP, SCOTT PERRY

 

                           …Scott Perry (R-Pa) can be called “Liar, liar, pants on fire!”

 

Below is a slice of the falsehoods that have been offered up by this Pennsylvania Rep

 

If you’ve never heard of the Pennsylvania Rep, Scott Perry, you been fortunate.

This U.S. Representative has been fanning false claims for years.  That was long before his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election based on former president Donald Trump’s false allegations caused the development of the January 6^th investigation committee.

Going back to the fall of 2017, Perry claimed a former House aide to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Pakistani/American staffer, Imran Awan, had orchestrated “massive” data transfers that amounted to a “substantial security threat.”  This was of course according to a report from Fox News. The staffer was later cleared of stealing any government secrets by federal prosecutors.

Around the same time, Perry suggested then-CNN host Chris Cuomo was exaggerating the lack of water and electricity in hurricane-devastated Puerto Rico. “You’re simply just making this stuff up,” Perry said.  Of course, Hurricane Maria was later tied to nearly 3000 deaths.

In January 2018, Perry Speculated about an Islamic State connection to the mass shooting in Las Vegas the previous year, contradicting law enforcement’s assertion that the accused gunman was working alone. “I smell a rat like a lot of Americans,” he said.  But as expected, nothing ever came of his speculations.

Perry’s incendiary remarks in recent years have made bold headlines that quickly faded. Now, the five-term congressman and incoming chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus has drawn the scrutiny of the bipartisan House committee that is probing the deadly January 6^th insurrection by the pro-Trump mob.

Perry recently rebuffed the committee’s request for communications and voluntary testimony.  This is the first significant action the panel has taken to obtain information from a sitting member of Congress.

“I stand with immense respect for our Constitution, the Rule of Law, and the Americans I represent who know that this entity is illegitimate, and not duly constituted under the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives,” Perry said in a statement.  However, as expected , he also added: “I decline this entity’s request and will continue to fight the failures of the radical Left.”

What he calls the “radical left”, is a committee that also has two, well respected Republican House members that support what the committee is chartered to achieve.

This committee, which was established by a vote of the full House, not just the Democrats, is interested in Perry’s efforts to help install Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official sympathetic to Trump’s false stolen election claims.  As a Trump installed acting attorney general, Perry had introduced Clark to Trump.  This is according to a Senate Judiciary Committee report that named Clark as a key figure in the attempt to overturn the election.

This Senate report found that Perry, along with the Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), had pressured top law enforcement officials to investigate the state’s 2020 election results.  According to the report, Perry and Mastriano contacted Associate Deputy Attorney General, Richard Donoghue, the Justice Department’s second-ranking official, to urge him to investigate Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud.

Donoghue told Senate investigators that during one conversation with Perry, the congressman complained “generally about the FBI” and the Imran Awan investigation.

As expected, Perry and his office declined repeated requests for comment from The Washington Post about that probe, that also asked for his record in Congress, public policy views and past public statements.  His office declined all those requested.

In 2017, during the investigation into Awan, Perry reached out to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. This office was handling the probe as well as a separate investigation into the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich.  Perry raised concerns in an Aug. 11 letter to Channing Phillips that a federal prosecutor in his office, the brother of former DNC chairwoman Wasserman Schultz, faced potential conflicts of interest regarding the two investigations.  Of course, nothing came from the investigation of any conflict.

At the time, the right-wing conspiracy theorists were casting Awan as a Pakistani government agent and Rich as the leaker of DNC documents during the 2016 campaign. Those allegations were all debunked. The congresswoman’s brother had nothing to do with either investigation, which were handled by separate sections of the U.S. Attorney’ office.  This is according to a response from the Justice Department’s legislative affairs office. Perry’s letter and the response has become available through public records requests.

“It was kind of ludicrous. All these conspiracy theories were running around, and there was no merit to any of them,” Mr. Phillips, a Democrat and former career prosecutor who is now retired, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “He had his facts wrong, that’s all I can say.”

Perry, a combat veteran who began his political career as a state representative in Pennsylvania, worked from an early age picking fruit at a farm in Mechanicsburg, Pa. The grandson of Colombian immigrants and the son of a single mom who fled multiple abusive partners, Perry was raised in a home he describes as “spartan” in his campaign biography. His family also relied on public assistance for several years. He found jobs as a mechanic, dock worker and insurance agent before graduating from Pennsylvania State University. By 1993, he was running his own mechanical contracting firm.

As expected, President Trump endorsed Perry in his 2018 and 2020 reelection bids, tweeting in May 2020 that Perry is “an incredible fighter for Pennsylvania.”  Perry has long relied on his working-class background to rally support among his rural Pennsylvania base.

Perry’s record reflects his allegiance to the far right. Last year, he was among 18 House Republicans to vote against a resolution condemning QAnon, the conspiracy theory that Trump is fighting a war against a satanic, child sex trafficking ring run by the “deep state.” The FBI has labeled the online movement a potential domestic terrorist threat.  (The “deep state” referred to in the QAnon theory has yet to be defined or explained.)

In March, Perry actually voted in opposition to the Violence Against Women Act, despite fellow Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick being the bill’s chief Republican sponsor. Two months later, he opposed the Covid-19 Hate Crimes act, which called for protecting Asian Americans amid the rise in hate crimes during the pandemic.

Also, as expected. Perry criticized the Biden administration’s decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan and voted against a bipartisan bill to expedite visas for Afghan refugees. He later told journalist Greta Van Susteren that allowing more Afghan refugees into the U.S. would lead to “little girls raped and killed in the streets.”  Obviously, this has not occurred.

Earlier this month, Perry baselessly accused Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), one of three Muslim House members and the co-sponsor of a bill to combat Islamophobia abroad, and of sympathizing with terrorists.

Throughout the pandemic, Perry has , without offering any proof, questioned the efficacy of masks and coronavirus vaccines. He has declined to respond to questions about whether he has been vaccinated against the coronavirus, but most Republican members of congress are vaccinated.  He has tested “positive” for the virus last month, but he said his symptoms were “quite mild.”   No one is surprised that he tested “positive” as he seldom was seen wearing a mask. (This is also the response of most vaccinated people that do test positive.)

“This government is saying you’ll inject something into your body whether you want to or not,” Perry said at a news conference at the Capitol in July. “That’s the definition of tyranny.”  It is also what the experts say you should do if you are: “following the science.”

In January, Perry’s profile will rise even higher when he becomes the leader of the House Freedom Caucus, a group formed in 2015 by conservative Republicans frustrated with GOP leaders for compromising with the Democrats.  Members of the caucus include Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.).  All of these have endorsed Trump’s groundless theories of election fraud.

If Republicans take control of the House in next year’s midterm elections, the Freedom Caucus could have a key role in picking the next House speaker.

“We have fought together for conservative values in the face of fierce Socialist Democrat and RINO Republican opposition,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), a co-founder of the Freedom Caucus, said last month, using the term “RINO”.  This is a term that means “Republican in Name Only.”  Brooks was also a Trump speaker at the rally before the January 6th attack on the Congress.

“At this pivotal moment in history, strong fighters are vital to protecting our foundational principles and freedoms. Scott Perry fits that bill,” Brooks said.

Perry also currently serves on the House Foreign Affairs and Transportation and Infrastructure committees.

In 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reconfigured the state’s congressional districts, setting new boundaries for Perry’s seat with more Democratic areas.  Perry defeated the Democrat, Eugene DePasquale by only 6.6 percentage points in 2020.

Perry also faces a potential reelection challenge from Brian Allen, a former Republican who said he left the party because it embraced Trump’s baseless accusations of a rigged election.

“There’s been a drip, drip, drip of information on Perry and how intimately he was involved in trying to overthrow the election,” DePasquale said in an interview Tuesday. “For the Jan. 6 committee to take this step and seek an interview with a sitting member of Congress means they feel it is serious.”

According to a letter by Jan. 6 committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Perry communicated with Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about Clark, the official who sought to use Justice Department resources to support Trump’s false claims of massive voting fraud.  People familiar with documents Meadows turned in to the committee say it was Perry who flagged the Chief of Staff about his encrypted messages. Perry has denied sending the “Please check your Signal” text to Meadows.

“Representative Perry has information directly relevant to our investigation,” a committee spokesman said, adding that the committee would consider “other tools” to get evidence from members who decline to cooperate voluntarily. One week ago, the committee voted to hold Meadows in contempt for defying a subpoena.

Perry has acknowledged that he had introduced Trump to Jeffery Clark in a January statement in which he said he had worked with the Justice Department official in the Civil Division on “various legislative matters.” Perry also said: “When President Trump asked if I would make an introduction to Clark, I obliged.”

Perry will go down in history as a true “MAGA” supporter of the disgraced former president of the United States.

Copyright G. Ater 2021