Who is Scott Perry? Meet Pennsylvania Rep who introduced Donald Trump to Jeffrey Clark in plot to oust acting AG
Lawmaker and Representative Scott Perry joined his colleagues in a long campaign to question the presidential election results. He played a major role in promoting the “Stop the Steal” events and backing an attempt to overturn millions of legally cast votes. Now reports suggest that the Pennsylvania lawmaker played a key role in former president Donald Trump’s plot to oust the acting Attorney General.
The plan, first reported by The New York Times, entailed replacing Attorney General Jeffrey A Rosen with Jeffrey Clark, who Trump had appointed to lead Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division and who later served as acting chief of the Civil Division. Perry played a significant role in the situation that played out at the top of the Justice Department this month when Trump acknowledged firing the acting attorney general and backed down only after top department officials threatened to resign en masse. It was Perry who first made Trump aware that a relatively rare Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division, was sympathetic to Trump’s view that the election had been stolen, according to former administration officials who spoke with Clark and Trump.
Perry introduced Trump to Clark, whose openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Trump with a welcome change from the acting attorney general Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president’s efforts to undo them. The New York Times reported that "Perry’s previously unreported role, and the quiet discussions between Trump and Clark that followed, underlined how much the former president was willing to use the government to subvert the election, turning to more junior and relatively unknown figures for help as ranking Republicans and cabinet members rebuffed him."
It is still not clear when Perry met Clark or how well they knew each other, before the introduction to Trump. The Department officials were surprised to learn that Trump called Clark directly on multiple occasions and that the two had met in person without informing Rosen, officials said. Justice Department policy stipulates that the president initially communicates with the attorney general or the deputy attorney general on all matters, and then a lower-level official if authorized.
As the date for Congress to affirm President Joe Biden’s victory came near, Perry and Clark made a plan to have the Justice Department send a letter to Georgia state lawmakers informing them to conduct an inquiry into voter fraud that could cancel the state’s Electoral College results. Former officials who were briefed on the plan said that the department’s dozens of voter fraud investigations nationwide had not turned up enough instances of fraud to alter the outcome of the election. Perry and Clark also discussed the plan with Trump, setting off a series of events that nearly led to the ouster of Rosen, who had refused to send the letter.
Perry is a member of the US House, representing Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District. He assumed office on January 3, 2019, and his current term ends on January 3, 2023. Perry ran for re-election to the US House to represent Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District. He won in the general election on November 3, 2020.
He is a member of the House Freedom Caucus. Prior to joining Congress, he served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 2006 to 2012.