On Tuesday, a federal judge told Rep. Scott Perry that he must disclose up to 1,659 documents to government investigators. The order came after the judge realized that the Constitution did not protect the communication records.
It is a fresh twist in the January 6 related investigation that has been making its way through courts. The FBI came into the possession of Perry’s phone in 2022 before Jack Smith became special counsel.
They took it as part of a federal investigation into efforts to tamper with the certification of the 2020 election. Of course, just getting the phone is not enough. They need access. So, investigators demanded a second warrant to access Perry’s data.
Unfortunately, they have had to wait as Perry asserted speech or debate protection over 2,219 records. Perry was seemingly “outraged” by this and asked that the cell phone data be returned.
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A federal judge previously said that most of those records were not under protection and ordered Perry to reveal their contents. However, the Pennsylvania Republican appealed the decision.
The appeals court mostly upheld the judge’s order. But it ruled that speech or debate protection applies in some instances that the lower court had rejected. In his Tuesday ruling, Chief Judge James Boasberg claimed that 396 of Perry’s records are protected by the speech or debate clause.
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The remaining records reportedly include messages about alleged election fraud and the role of the vice president in certifying the electoral vote count. And the judge wants them out in the open.
“Having now analyzed each of the 2,055 documents still at issue, the Court will order Perry to disclose 1,659 of them, but not the 396 others,” Boasberg’s ruling reads.
The congressman argued that the Constitution’s speech or debate clause protected him from the government searching his communications even though the argument did not pass in the latest court filing.
The clause is to protect a member’s speech in the legislative session. But it has been construed to protect speech beyond the session as well. Perry has received backlash for his alleged actions after the 2020 presidential election.
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The January 6 committee previously got some of his text messages. In them, he asked former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows about a conspiracy theory related to the 2020 election.
Perry’s lawyer, John Rowley III, says that he had an “obligation” to investigate “seemingly credible” information about “discrepancies” in the 2020 election.
He said: “We are reviewing how the district court applied the standards required by the DC Circuit and will decide whether to seek further judicial review.”
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