Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry on Tuesday rejected the Jan. 6 committee’s demand for testimony about his key role in former President Donald Trump’s effort to overturn his election loss, escalating a confrontation with the panel.
The outspoken Republican lawmaker said he wouldn’t voluntarily answer questions about his effort to get Trump to install pliant loyalists in top positions to boost false claims of election fraud in the weeks leading up to the attack on the Capitol.
“I decline this entity’s request and will continue to fight the failures of the radical Left,” Perry said in a statement.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack must now decide whether to slap Perry with a subpoena. That would be a significant escalation since Perry would be the first sitting lawmaker targeted by the panel.
Perry has emerged as a point man in Trump’s Big Lie campaign, particularly his aborted effort to install loyalists in top spots in the Department of Justice.
Trump mulled replacing acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Jeffrey Clark in hopes of getting the DOJ to openly back his false claims that vote counts were tainted in key swing states that Biden won. He backed down in the face of threats by top aides to quit en masse.
On Monday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee chair, asked Perry to answer questions about his communications with Clark, who has taken the Fifth Amendment and refuses to cooperate, and ex-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
