FBI confiscates Congressman’s phone over Capitol storming
FBI agents seized the cell phone of Republican member of the House of Representatives Scott Perry on Tuesday, Perry reports. He did not say why this happened, but acknowledged that the FBI was preparing a court order for the seizure. He was not happy about the confiscation of his phone. “My phone contains information about my legislative and political activities and personal conversations with my wife, family, voters and friends. None of this is the government’s business,” he told Fox News.
Perry, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, has been the subject of a parliamentary investigation into the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters. He helped distribute Trump’s statements about alleged election fraud in 2020 and was in contact with the White House in the weeks leading up to the 2021 Capitol attack. Perry also attended a meeting with the president in December 2020 to discuss options for changing the election results.
In June, at a House Committee hearing investigating the Capitol storming, it was revealed that Perry was one of five Republican Congressmen who had asked Trump to be pardoned for their role in the plan to change the 2020 election results. The other four pardons were Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs and Louie Gohmert. They would have asked for a so-called preventive pardon, which the president can grant before a sentence is imposed or someone is even found guilty of a crime.