And wouldn't you know, there's a Pennsylvania connection or two!
We'll
start here at
Forbes. In a piece about House Minority Leader Mark Meadows very bad past few days,
there's this:
Friday night: Yet more troubling news broke when the January 6 committee filed deposition excerpts alleging several prominent House Republicans, including Reps. Jim Jordan (Ohio), Louie Gohmert (Texas) and Matt Gaetz (Fla.) held meetings with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in December 2020 to strategize how to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The link above leads to Politico:
Republican members of Congress were heavily involved in calls and meetings with former President Donald Trump and his top aides as they devised a strategy to overturn the election in December 2020, according to new evidence filed in federal court late Friday.
Deposition excerpts filed by the Jan 6. select committee — part of an effort to force a former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to appear for an interview — suggest that some of Trump’s top allies in Congress were frequently present in meetings where a handful of strategies to prevent then-President-elect Joe Biden from taking office were discussed, including efforts to replace the leadership of the Justice Department with figures who would sow doubts about the legitimacy of the election.
Lawmakers who attended meetings, in person or by phone, included Reps. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and numerous members of the House Freedom Caucus, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows who provided key testimony about the conversations and meetings Meadows had in December 2020.
There it is. Did you catch the Pa connection?
Third paragraph, first sentence. Twelfth and thirteenth words; Scott Perry. He represents Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives.
That "new evidence" is a Defendents Motion for Summary Judgement filed on 4/22/2022.
In it, the committee is looking for Meadows to talk to them on seven discrete topics:
- Testimony regarding non-privileged documents (including text and email communications) that Mr. Meadows has already provided to the Select Committee in response to the subpoena, and testimony about events that Mr. Meadows has already publicly described in his book and elsewhere;
- Testimony and documents regarding post-election efforts by the Trump campaign, the Trump legal team, and Mr. Meadows to create false slates of Presidential electors, or to pressure or persuade state and local officials and legislators to take actions to change the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election;
- Testimony and documents relating to communications with Members of Congress in preparation for and during the events of January 6th;
- Testimony and documents regarding the plan, in the days before January 6th, to replace Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen with Mr. Jeffrey Clark so that the Department could corruptly change its conclusions regarding election fraud;
- Testimony and documents relating to efforts by President Trump to instruct, direct, persuade or pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th;
- Testimony and documents relating to activity in the White House immediately before and during the events of January 6th; and
- Testimony and documents relating to meetings and communications with individuals not affiliated with the federal government regarding the efforts to change the results of the 2020 election.
Some of those 7 have great impact on this Pennsylvania connection. As we'll see.
But let's look and see where Mr Perry shows up in the document.
Regarding the above Topic 4, there's this:
Mr. Meadows participated in multiple communications with persons involved in the effort to replace the Acting Attorney General in the days before January 6th. He communicated with Congressman Scott Perry about elevating Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark. Other communications relate to issues on which President Trump has not asserted privilege or immunity claims; indeed, the Select Committee has already received testimony regarding the President’s communications with White House Counsel and multiple Justice Department officials on these issues. Evidence shows that Mr. Clark intended, if appointed, to issue a series of letters changing the Department’s position and giving credence to President Trump’s allegations that the election was stolen. The Select Committee believes that such letters using Department of Justice letterhead, would have lent the imprimatur of the Department of Justice to, and appear to legitimize, false claims that the election was stolen if released prior to January 6th and could thereby have mobilized an even more significant, violent attack. (No subsequent effort by Department of Justice staff to oppose such revelations could likely have put that genie fully back in the bottle in time.)We've seen the Scott Perry/Jeffrey Clark nexus already.
From the NYTimes:
On Nov. 9, two days after The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Biden, crisis meetings were underway at Trump campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va.
Mr. Perry and Mr. Jordan huddled with senior White House officials, including Mr. Meadows; Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser; Bill Stepien, the campaign manager; and Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary.
According to two people familiar with the meetings, which have not been previously reported, the group settled on a strategy that would become a blueprint for Mr. Trump’s supporters in Congress: Hammer home the idea that the election was tainted, announce legal actions being taken by the campaign, and bolster the case with allegations of fraud.
PA Representative Scott Perry was there at the beginning of the plan.
Regarding the above Topic 2, there's this:
As indicated, Mr. Meadows participated, as a functionary of the Trump campaign, in activities intended to result in actions by state officials and legislatures to change the certified results of the election. Thus, under D.C. Circuit precedent, documents and testimony regarding events in this capacity are not subject to claims of executive privilege. See In re Sealed Case (Espy), 121 F.3d 729, 752 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (“Of course, the [presidential communication] privilege only applies to communications that these advisers and their staff author or solicit and receive in the course of performing their function of advising the President on official government matters.”) One such example is the call with Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger, and other related efforts to change the election results in Georgia. Other examples are numerous. See supra at 10, 30. For example, Mr. Meadows was also involved in an effort to generate so-called alternative slates of electors for certain states which falsely certified that President Trump rather than President Biden had been victorious. See supra at 13- 14. The Select Committee now has testimony from other White House staff that Mr. Meadows and certain congressmen were advised by White House Counsel that efforts to generate false certificates did not comply with the law. [Italics in original.]
This "so-called alternative slates of electors" issue is what the Committee subpoenaed PA State Senator Doug Mastriano.
From the subpoena letter to PA State Senator Doug Mastriano:
Based on publicly available information and information produced to the Select Committee, we believe that you have documents and information that are relevant to the Select Committee’s investigation. For example, we understand that you have knowledge of and participated in a plan to arrange for an alternate slate of electors to be presented to the President of the Senate on January 6, 2021, and we understand that you spoke with former President Trump about your post-election activities. We understand you participated in these activities based on assertions of voter fraud and other asserted irregularities and based on a stated belief that under the U.S. Constitution the “state legislature has the sole authority to direct the manner of selecting delegates to the Electoral College.” We have an interest in understanding these activities and the theories that motivated them. [Emphasis added.]Will there be any sort of comment by Rep Perry or PA State Sen Mastriano about the ongoing investigation into Mark Meadows involvement in Trump's attempted coup?
Wherever you look their names are but one or maybe two steps away.
