WASHINGTON D.C., DC — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the United States Capitol building, on Monday, called for a formal ethics inquiry into House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other allies of former President Donald Trump for refusing to cooperate with the probe.
U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican, is among the Trump allies named in the ethics inquiry recommendation, along with GOP Reps Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Andy Biggs (Arizona).
The Jan. 6 Committee's recommendations to the House Ethics Committee are a milder step than criminal referrals to the Justice Department it made against Trump and several members of the former president's inner circle.
But in making the ethics inquiry against Perry, the committee drew attention to his actions in the lead up to and the aftermath of the attack.
Former senior Justice Department officials have testified that Perry, a Pennsylvania Republican, had “an important role” in Trump’s effort to try to install Jeffrey Clark — a top Justice official who was pushing Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud — as the acting attorney general.
As part of the investigation, the FBI seized a cell phone belonging to Perry in August.
Perry later sued the Department of Justice to block investigators from accessing his phone.
“[F]ederal agents should not be given carte blanche to root around in Rep. Perry’s phone data looking for evidence that they hope might further their investigation,” Perry’s attorneys John Rowley and John Irving wrote in the 16-page lawsuit.
Perry claimed that the data on his phone includes material protected by attorney-client privilege, marital privilege and the constitutional provision that limits most legal action against members of Congress related to their official duties.
“Make no mistake, the seizure of my personal phone has nothing to do with January 6, 2021 and everything to do with November 8, 2022. This breathtaking abuse of power by President Biden and his enablers will never deter me from protecting Constitutional Rights for all Americans, and pushing back against these banana republic tactics from a failed and floundering administration, " Perry said in a statement.
Perry filed a motion to drop the lawsuit against the DOJ in October. He did not disclose his reasons for dropping the lawsuit at the time.
Jay Ostrich, a spokesman for Perry, issued the following statement in the aftermath of the committee's ethics recommendation on Monday.
“More games from a petulant and soon-to-be defunct kangaroo court desperate for revenge and struggling to get out from under the weight of its own irrelevancy.
"Congressman Perry is pressing on with his commitment to help his constituents, who, once again — unlike several members of this illegitimate entity — overwhelmingly sent him back to Washington to fix what President Biden and his enablers have broken.”
Perry was re-elected in Pennsylvania's 10th District in November, winning nearly 54 percent of the vote.
