A Republican congressman from Pennsylvania was instrumental in Trump's plan to shake up the Justice
A Republican congressman from Pennsylvania was instrumental in Trump's plan to shake up the Justice Department and overturn the election
salarshani@businessinsider.com (Sarah Al-Arshani) 2 hrs ago
© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images House Homeland Security Committee's Oversight and Management Efficiency Subcommittee Chairman Scott Perry (R-PA) holds a hearing about the possibility of transferring Guantanamo Bay detainees out of Cuba and into the United States on Capitol Hill April 28, 2016. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Republican Rep. Scott Perry helped former President Donald Trump plot to oust acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen so he could place a loyalist who would help him overturn the election, The New York Times reported Saturday evening.
Perry introduced Trump to Jeffrey Clark, the Justice Department lawyer who was working with the ex-president to find ways to stir up doubts about the election results. Rosen had not cooperated with Trump's alleged plan, prompting him to consider replacing him with Clark.
Trump reportedly only backed down from his plan to fire Rosen after top leaders at the department threatened to resign. The former president was worried that news of several Justice Department leaders resigning all at once would take the spotlight away from his baseless voter fraud claims.
More:https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-republican-congressman-from-pennsylvania-was-instrumental-in-trumps-plan-to-shake-up-the-justice-department-and-overturn-the-election/ar-BB1d2jGn?li=BBnb7Kz
= new reply since forum marked as read
Katie Benner and Catie Edmondson 3 hrs ago
WASHINGTON — When Representative Scott Perry joined his colleagues in a monthslong campaign to undermine the results of the presidential election, promoting “Stop the Steal” events and supporting an attempt to overturn millions of legally cast votes, he often took a back seat to higher-profile loyalists in President Donald J. Trump’s orbit.
© Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times Representative Scott Perry first made President Donald J. Trump aware that a relatively obscure Justice Department official was sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s view that the election had been stolen.
But Mr. Perry, an outspoken Pennsylvania Republican, played a significant role in the crisis that played out at the top of the Justice Department this month, when Mr. Trump considered firing the acting attorney general and backed down only after top department officials threatened to resign en masse.
It was Mr. Perry, a member of the hard-line Freedom Caucus, who first made Mr. Trump aware that a relatively obscure Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division, was sympathetic to Mr. Trump’s view that the election had been stolen, according to former administration officials who spoke with Mr. Clark and Mr. Trump.
© Ting Shen for The New York Times The acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, in October. Mr. Perry worked with Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the Justice Department’s civil division, to try to remove Mr. Rosen from his post.
Mr. Perry introduced the president to Mr. Clark, whose openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president’s efforts to undo them.
More:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pennsylvania-lawmaker-played-key-role-in-trumps-plot-to-oust-acting-attorney-general/ar-BB1d2dtP?li=BBnb7Kz
