In Fox News op-Ed, Pa. Rep. Scott Perry blames ‘deep state’ for Trump impeachment inquiry

With the U.S. House  barreling toward an impeachment vote, two of President Donald Trump’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill tried to knock the legs out from under that effort, attacking some of the key witnesses that congressional Democrats used to build their case.

In a joint op-Ed for Fox News, GOP U.S. Reps. Scott Perry, of Pennsylvania, and Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., slammed Democrats “for relentlessly attacking President Trump since his election. They have been joined by the Washington establishment that includes much of the media, bureaucracy and the executive branch itself.”

Perry, R-10th District, and Biggs, focused much of their ire on testimony offered by former National Security Council official Fiona Hill, calling it a “not-so-thinly-veiled attack on President Trump’s policy.”

During her Nov. 21 appearance before the House Intelligence Committee, Hill told lawmakers that she viewed attempts to push Ukrainian officials open investigations into President Donald Trump’s rivals was a ‘domestic political errand,’ that undermined U.S. foreign policy, CNN reported. 

Hill, confronted Republican members of the Intelligence Committee for repeating “false narratives” on 2016 Russian election interference.

Neither Biggs nor Perry are on the Intelligence Committee, which launched the impeachment inquiry and heard the testimonies of diplomats and Washington staffers who worked on U.S. – Ukraine policy.

In the op-ed, Perry and Biggs write that Hill “lectured and hectored” the committee. Perry and Biggs also suggested that Hill’s information was potentially provided by Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Moving on from Hill, Perry and Biggs claim that “deep state American diplomats” were unhappy with Trump’s Ukraine policy, and even more so with the president’s decision to send former Special Envoy Kurt Volker, European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland and former Energy Secretary Rick Perry in their places.

The two concluded that the impeachment inquiry is an attempted coup on the part of those who dislike Trump. 

“The fanatics who hated Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign are continuing to undermine him using those entrenched in government to perpetuate their coup against this president,” they wrote.