WASHINGTON — Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., said Tuesday that he won't cooperate with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot, which requested information Monday about his knowledge of the events surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"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 US House of Representatives," Perry said in a series of tweets Tuesday.
Perry added that he is declining the committee's request and that he "will continue to fight the failures of the radical Left who desperately seek distraction from their abject failures of crushing inflation, a humiliating surrender in Afghanistan, and the horrendous crisis they created at our border."
A spokesman for the House committee said that Perry has information relevant to the Jan. 6 investigation and that federal courts have rejected former President Donald Trump's claims that the committee lacks an appropriate legislative purpose.
"The Select Committee prefers to gather relevant evidence from members cooperatively, but if members with directly relevant information decline to cooperate and instead endeavor to cover up, the Select Committee will consider seeking such information using other tools,” the spokesman said.
Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said Monday in a letter to Perry that the bipartisan panel has evidence connecting him to the attack on the Capitol. Thompson said Perry was involved in efforts to make former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark the acting attorney general during the final months of the Trump administration.
“We have received evidence from multiple witnesses that you had an important role in the efforts to install Mr. Clark as acting Attorney General," Thompson said, citing former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and former Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, who were in the posts at the tail end of Trump's time in office. Clark played a key role in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Perry, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who entered Congress in 2013, objected to Pennsylvania's electors just hours after the Jan. 6 riot, along with seven other GOP members of the state's congressional delegation. He was also involved in pushing election fraud conspiracy theories in Pennsylvania.
