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Perry: I 'obliged' Trump with introduction to Justice lawyer

FOX43 has requested multiple on-camera interviews with the South Central PA Congressman since the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Editor's note: The above video is from January 2020.

After two days of silence, Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania is confirming a New York Times report, saying he had introduced then-President Donald Trump to a top Justice Department lawyer who, according to the newspaper, discussed a plan to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Perry, who represents Dauphin County and parts of Cumberland and York Counties, has disputed the validity of President Joe Biden’s victory in Pennsylvania. In the statement, he did not say his intentions were to oust the acting Attorney General and overturn election results, which were certified in Congress for Biden the day of the insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

However, Perry did acknowledge he met with the former assistant attorney general Jeffrey Clark at the behest of former president Trump, where the three spoke about their concerns over the election results.

“When President Trump asked if I would make an introduction, I obliged.  My conversations with the President or the Assistant Attorney General, as they have been with all with whom I’ve engaged following the election, were a reiteration of the many concerns about the integrity of our elections, and that those allegations should at least be investigated to ease the minds of the voters that they had, indeed, participated in a free and fair election," Perry said in a statement.

Perry has not disputed his own election win in November. FOX43 has reached out to Perry's office multiple times since the U.S. Capitol riots on January 6 requesting an on-camera interview.

The New York Times report, released Friday, said that Clark had been discussing with Trump ways to oust the acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, who, along with former Attorney General Bill Barr, indicated along with election officials across the country that there were no cases of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. The Times reported the two wanted to change the results of the election under the guise of widespread irregularities. 

According to the Associated Press, the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, said Monday that he is launching an investigation to examine whether any former or current department officials “engaged in an improper attempt” to overturn the results of the presidential election. 

Perry was among eight of Pennsylvania's nine Republican Congressmen in the U.S. House which voted in the early morning hours of January 7 to block Pennsylvania's electoral votes from going to Biden. More than half of the Republicans in Pennsylvania's state legislature had written to Congress asking them to block or delay allowing those electors. Multiple challenges to Pennsylvania election law were thrown out in court, including the U.S. Supreme Court. 

On January 9, Perry wrote in a statement that he accepted the election results, but that he intended "to continue to work with my colleagues at the state and federal levels to strengthen election integrity to ensure that these constitutional abuses never happen again."

Multiple groups have called for Perry to resign the seat in Congress he has held since 2013, including the Democratic Party of York County, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, who said Perry's "attempt to compromise our justice system is a disgrace."

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