Pennsylvania Republican Republican Scott Perry has denied ever asking for clemency from former President Trump for his involvement in attempts to cancel the 2020 election, disputing a statement made by Republican colleague Liz Cheney during Thursday’s hearing. the House of Representatives elected a commission to investigate the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“The idea that I once sought the president’s pardon for myself or other members of Congress is an absolute, shameless and heartless lie,” Perry wrote on Twitter on Friday.
During a review of the commission’s investigation, Cheney, deputy chairman of the committee and one of the two Republicans, said Perry was involved in efforts to appoint Justice Department attorney Jeff Clark as attorney general. Trump wanted Clark to be the nation’s top law enforcement official to be authorized to send a letter to Georgia and other states saying, according to Cheney, that the Department of Justice has “identified significant concerns that may have affected of the election result. ”
Other Justice Department officials appointed by Trump, including Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen and Deputy Attorney General Richard Donohue, threatened to resign over his actions and opposed then-President and Clark in the Oval Office, Cheney said. Rosen will testify before the committee at her hearing on Wednesday, June 15, CBS News has learned.
After claiming that Perry had advocated the appointment of Clark as Attorney General, Cheney said: “As you will see, Perry’s representative contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6 to ask for the president’s pardon. Many other Republican congressmen have also called for the president’s pardon for their role in trying to cancel the 2020 election.
She did not name additional members of Congress or provide additional evidence to support her claim during her statement Thursday night, which offered a kind of summary of the case that the committee will present during the next five hearings in June.
Perry is one of five Republican lawmakers the commission has called to testify in its investigation. None of them responded to the summons. The others are House Leader Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Andy Biggs of Arizona.
The Pennsylvania congressman initially rejected the commission’s December request to testify voluntarily about its discussions with Justice Department officials. In a letter in May, in response to the summons, his lawyer wrote that “there is nothing wrong with these discussions and Mr Perry sees no reason to be questioned by members of the Democrats that [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi was appointed to the committee. “
Perry, like other Republicans, argues the election committee is illegitimate because Pelosi refused to allow some of McCarthy’s appointees to serve on the committee, an argument that was rejected by a Trump-appointed judge.
According to an October report from a Senate commission investigating the attacks, Perry introduced Clark to Trump and the three met in the Oval Office on December 23, 2021. The commission also found Perry, named Donohy by Trump’s order on December 27, to discuss baseless allegations voter fraud in Pennsylvania and mentioned Clark during the conversation.
Rob Legaret and Melissa Quinn contributed to this story.
Attack on the US Capitol
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Rebecca Kaplan covers Congress for CBS News.
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