Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Pa. Rep. Scott Perry, other top Republicans

(*This story was updated at 5 p.m. on Thursday, 5/12/22 to include comment from U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-10th District.)

After asking him, the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection has ordered a Pennsylvania lawmaker to appear before the panel.

U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-10th District, was among the five Republicans hit with the extraordinary legal order.  The others are U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, of California, and GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, Mo Brooks of Alabama, Andy Biggs of Arizona, the panel said in a statement.

In its statement, the House panel said it was targeting Perry because he was “directly involved with efforts to corrupt the Department of Justice and install Jeffrey Clark as acting Attorney General. In addition, Mr. Perry had various communications with the White House about a number of matters relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation, including allegations that Dominion voting machines had been corrupted.”

The House panel first asked Perry, who chairs the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, to appear before it last December, over his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the Capital-Star previously reported.

Perry — an ally of former President Donald Trump ally who objected to Pennsylvania’s electoral results — and other congressional Republicans met with the former president to plan how they could derail final certification ahead of the violent attack. The day after receiving that request, Perry turned it down, calling the committee is “illegitimate.”

*In a statement on Thursday afternoon, Perry repeated that criticism.

“That this illegitimate body leaked their latest charade to the media ahead of contacting targeted Members is proof positive once again that this political witch hunt is about fabricating headlines and distracting Americans from their abysmal record of running America into the ground,” he said.

Last month, newly disclosed text messages showed that Perry played a “key” role in efforts to topple the 2020 election results, and pushed to get the country’s top intelligence official to investigate baseless conspiracy theories, the Capital-Star reported.

“The Select Committee has learned that several of our colleagues have information relevant to our investigation into the attack on January 6th and the events leading up to it,” the panel’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said in the committee’s statement. “Before we hold our hearings next month, we wished to provide members the opportunity to discuss these matters with the committee voluntarily.”

“Regrettably, the individuals receiving subpoenas today have refused and we’re forced to take this step to help ensure the committee uncovers facts concerning January 6th,” he continued. “We urge our colleagues to comply with the law, do their patriotic duty, and cooperate with our investigation as hundreds of other witnesses have done.”

The committee has scheduled the depositions for the members of Congress for the end of May.

Read the full letter to Perry below.