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Of all the fantastic false allegations of fraud and vote rigging in the 2020 presidential election, Italygate was one of the most extreme. And spokesman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) Was at the heart of Donald Trump’s attention.
This particular allegation of fraud centered around what a former Justice Department official described on Thursday as an “absurd” allegation: that an Italian defense attorney was in a conspiracy with senior CIA officials to use military satellites to transfer votes from Trump to Joe Biden. As The Washington Post reported, the theory was put forward by a socialist from Virginia who once gave an extended television interview from a 22-bedroom mansion, which she repeatedly described as her own, although she was not.
But as a House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol showed on Thursday, Italygate has also made its way to the highest levels of the US government. On December 31, 2020, the Commission showed text messages between Perry and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, which included a YouTube video of it, with Perry asking, “Why can’t we just work with the Italian government?”
Meadows discusses the allegation “often,” according to spokesman Adam Kinsinger (R-Ill.), Who led the interrogation during Thursday’s committee hearing, which focused on Trump’s efforts to put pressure on the Justice Department to help undo the results. from the 2020 presidential election. Perry also pressured Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen to investigate. “I told him that this whole thing about Italy was debunked,” Rosen said during Thursday’s hearing. Another former justice official who testified Thursday, Richard Donohue, said the theory was “pure madness” and “clearly absurd.”
This was not Perry’s only involvement in encouraging Trump to cancel the vote. The commission received records from the National Archives showing that Perry was among Republican members of Congress who met with the president in the Oval Office on December 21, 2020. That day, Meadows tweeted that the purpose of the meeting was to “prepare for resistance to growing evidence of voter fraud. Stay on the line.”
The committee also showed White House diaries showing that Perry had returned to the White House the next day – and “this time he brought in a Justice Department official named Jeffrey Clark.”
This was the first known meeting between Clark and Trump – and it probably marked the beginning of events that led to a dramatic showdown between the president and senior Justice officials, who refused Trump’s demands to declare the fraud tainted Biden’s victory.
In a statement Thursday, Perry said he had worked with Clark “on various legislative issues” and that “when President Trump asked me if I would make an introduction, I went on.”
The commission also testified from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former Trump special assistant, and several other former Trump White House officials, who said Perry was among several members of Congress who asked Trump for a preventive pardon for his work on the eve. on January 6 violence.
Perry categorically denied asking for pardon, saying in a statement Thursday: “I have never sought a presidential pardon for myself or other members of Congress.
Other members of Congress who sought pardon, according to the testimony, were Matt Gaetz of Florida, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Louis Homert of Texas. In an email to the White House shown Thursday, Brooks asked him and Gaetz Trump to “give general (universal) pardons” to every member of Congress who voted on January 6, 2021, to reject the Electoral College’s proposals. Arizona or Pennsylvania. More than 145 Republicans voted to oppose one or both proposals. Those named during the hearing were asked to comment.
Hutchinson said Perry spoke directly to her about the request, which Perry denied.
“At no point have I spoken to Miss Hutchinson, head of the White House, or to any White House pardon official for me or another member of Congress – this has never happened,” Perry said in a statement.
Biggs said in a statement Thursday that Hutchinson was “wrong” in believing he had asked for pardon.
Homert said in a statement that he had asked for pardon for “other deserving people”, but not for himself.
Hutchinson told the commission that Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) spoke of pardon but never explicitly requested it. She also said she had heard from Patrick Philbin, a White House attorney, that Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) Had contacted the office and asked for clemency, but that she had not spoken directly to the Georgia congresswoman.
“The general tone was that we could be tried because we were defending the president’s position on these things,” Eric Hershman, a former White House lawyer, said in recorded testimony released at Thursday’s hearing.
“100% fake news,” Jordan tweeted after the testimony.
“Saying ‘heard’ means you don’t know,” Green tweeted. “The spread of gossip and lies is exactly what the Witch Hunt Committee is doing on January 6th.
After the video ended, Kinzinger said: “The only reason I know to ask for clemency is because you think you have committed a crime.
Brooks, in a statement sent to reporters during Thursday’s hearing, said he agreed to testify before the commission, but only under a set of conditions, including his testimony to be public and the questions “relevant and limited to the events surrounding ”The January 6 attack.
Participants in the uprising have repeatedly cited Perry as the main leader of the House of Representatives’ Republican Conference in the White House in Trump’s quest to undo his defeat. So far, Perry has obstructed the committee by opposing a subpoena seeking its co-operation in the investigation.
Kinzinger said Thursday that Republicans’ flirtation with Italygate was “one of the best examples of the length President Trump would have taken to stay in power, searching the Internet to support his conspiracy theories.”
Although debunked by justice officials, the theory reached Kash Patel, a Defense Department official, who called Donohue for his opinion. Finally, Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller called an attaché in Rome to ask them to investigate.
Some of Perry’s communications with justice officials were revealed in a report published by the Senate Judiciary Commission in October.
A war veteran who began his political career in the Pennsylvania legislature, Perry has long insisted on false allegations and urged the Trump administration to investigate various conspiracy theories spreading baseless allegations of electoral fraud.
According to testimony on Thursday, Perry heads the House’s freedom faction, a hard-line group that counts several of its members among those seeking pardon.
MP Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), At the committee’s first hearing this month, said Perry was among those who asked for clemency, but Thursday was the first glimmer of testimony from former White House officials confirming the claim.
After this first hearing, Perry tweeted: “The idea that I once sought the president’s pardon for myself or for other members of Congress is an absolute, shameless and soulless lie.
Cheney closed the first hearing with a scathing rebuke to those members of Congress who she said helped fuel the January 6 violence.
“I say this to my Republicans who defend the defenseless,” she said. “The day will come when Donald Trump will leave, but your dishonor will remain.
Mariana Alfaro, Matthew Brown, Rosalind C. Helderman and Mariana Sotomayor contributed to this report.
The uprising on January 6
The House Election Commission, which is investigating the uprising of January 6, 2021, is holding its third high-profile hearing this month. Find the latest here.
Hearings in Congress: A House of Representatives commission investigating the attack on the US Capitol has conducted more than 1,000 interviews in the past year. He will share his findings in a series of hearings starting on June 9th. Here’s what we know about hearings and how to watch them.
the riot: On January 6, 2021, a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. Five people died that day or immediately thereafter, and 140 police officers were attacked.
Inside the siege: During the riot, the rebels approached dangerously to infiltrate the building’s interior shrines while lawmakers were still there, including former Vice President Mike Pence. The Washington Post researched text messages, photos and videos to create a chronology of the video of what happened on January 6.
Charges: Proud Boys leader Enrique Tario and four lieutenants have been charged with rebellion, joining Oathkeepers leader Stuart Rhodes and about two dozen associates to be accused of involvement in the Capitol attack. They are just some of the hundreds who have been indicted, many of whom received sentences significantly lighter than the government demanded.
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