Left: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. Right: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images.
- The DOJ is investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election and confiscated Rep. Scott Perry's phone.
- Rep. Adam Schiff said the seizure suggests the department views the fake elector's scheme as criminal.
- Perry called the seizure an "abuse of power" on Fox News Sunday.
California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said that it's possible the Justice Department views the GOP fake electors scheme as criminal.
The DOJ is investigating Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 election and Rep. Scott Perry, an ally of former President Donald Trump, is apparently a key figure in the probe.
Perry's phone was seized on Tuesday and several lawmakers in Pennsylvania have been subpoenaed by the FBI looking for information on the Pennsylvania Republican.
The California congressman called the confiscation "striking" because "probable cause" of Perry committing a crime would have to have been established.
"And the fact that it was a member of Congress's phone, I think, would make the Justice Department all the more certain, or need to be certain, that they had the probable cause," Schiff told anchor Margaret Brennan on CBS News' "Face the Nation."
"And that also suggests the Department thinks that this fake elector plot was a violation of law, which I think it certainly was. So, I think it's very significant. All those respects," he added.
Trump allies have been accused of attempting to create alternate slates of electors in support of Trump in seven swing states — including Pennsylvania — to overturn Biden's presidential victory.
Perry has said he introduced Trump to Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official who believed the election was inaccurate. The January 6 House Select Committee found that Clark, who Trump tried to place as attorney general, penned a draft of an unsent letter to officials in six states suggesting they select alternate electors.
Perry called the seizure of his phone an "abuse of power" on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."
"Anybody that doesn't bend the knee, that isn't intimidated, that isn't parroting the narrative, is now subject to these kinds of third-world banana republic tactics," he added.
Perry, who was endorsed by Trump in 2018 and 2020, was the first congressional lawmaker to have their phone seized during the investigation, The Washington Post reported.
Text messages obtained by the January 6 House Select Committee found that Perry texted then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows five days after President Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election to "immediately seize" Dominion voting machines. Perry argued that "the Brits" and the CIA manipulated the vote.
Former Trump aides said that Perry, who has been a vocal proponent of Trump and baseless conspiracy theories, is one of six GOP lawmakers that sought preemptive pardons after the January 6 Capitol riot.
Perry and Schiff did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/kMWHYb9
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