Rick Perry Reportedly Texted Mark Meadows a Radical and Misspelled Scheme to Keep Trump in Office: ‘HERE’s an AGRESSIVE STRATEGY’
As votes were still being counted in many states just one day after the 2020 election, energy secretary and former Texas governor Rick Perry reportedly suggested that Republican legislatures ignore possible victories for Joe Biden in their states.
CNN’s Jake Tapper reported on Friday that sources told the network that the text, which had already been made public but whose author was unknown, came from a phone number belonging to Perry.
Perry’s idea wasn’t original, but was certainly radical. With the election very much up in the air on Wednesday, November 4, Perry proposed the plan to then-President Donald Trump’s chief-of-staff Mark Meadows via text. That text is now in the possession of the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol 6 that occurred two months later.
The idea was for states with GOP-controlled legislatures to simply send their preferred slate of electors to cast their ballots for Trump in the Electoral College. Perry indicated his belief that a legal challenge to the plan could ultimately land before the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court.
The text was first revealed on the House floor by committee member, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who did not name Perry, and mistakenly referred to the author as a House lawmaker. (Raskin later corrected the Congressional Record.)
The text read,
HERE’s an AGRESSIVE [sic] STRATEGY Why can t [sic] the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declares this is BS (where conflicts and election not called that night and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS.
Tapper reported that a spokesperson for Perry denied that Perry had sent the text. However, Tapper noted, “When asked how he explained the fact that the text came from Rick Perry’s phone number, which we learned through multiple ways, the spokesman had no explanation.”
The text was one of thousands of documents Meadows had handed over to the select committee. He is currently defying a subpoena by refusing to appear before the panel.
Watch above via CNN.
