So much for House Republican Scott Perry
House Republican Scott Perry says he won’t cooperate with the January 6th Committee. Fine. Good. Now they get to subpoena him, refer him for contempt, have him arrested, and make an example out of him. In fact, given how adamant Perry is about not cooperating, they may have gone after him first, knowing he wouldn’t cooperate, in order to make an example out of him.
It’s now pretty clear in hindsight that the January 6th Committee went after Steve Bannon first, knowing he wouldn’t cooperate, so it could make an example out of him, which scared other key witnesses into cooperating. Accordingly, busting Scott Perry may scare a more skittish House Republican into cooperating.
Some of the media and the pundits are probably about to tell us that the committee will never make a criminal contempt referral against a fellow House member, and/or that the DOJ will never indict and arrest a House member. But these are the same folks who told us that the committee would never make a criminal referral against Bannon, and that the DOJ would never indict Bannon. So that kind of talk can be discarded.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Scott Perry continues with his defiance of the committee, or whether the reality of receiving a congressional subpoena and being referred for prosecution will scare him into caving. But again, the point of busting a non-cooperator like Perry is to scare other, more skittish House Republicans into cooperating. The committee likely only needs one of them to cooperate in order to get what it needs.
