Donald Trump has a whole new Rick Perry problem
Yesterday, before the ink was even dry on the written opening statement submitted to the House impeachment inquiry by U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, we saw Rick Perry announce his resignation from Donald Trump’s cabinet. Today we saw Trump pen an open love letter to Perry, in a thinly veiled effort at convincing Perry not to flip on him. But now Trump has a whole new Rick Perry problem.
Sondland’s testimony, that he and Rick Perry and Kurt Volker didn’t realize the extent to which Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani were involving them in a criminal scandal, leaves Perry with little choice but to cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry and tell the same story that Sondland just told. The question is whether Perry figures this out quickly enough for his cooperation to save him from an eventual post-Trump indictment. Perry isn’t the brightest bulb, but he just got a big nudge in the right direction.
Republican Congressman Francis Rooney just announced that he thinks Rick Perry should testify. Rooney surely knows full well that Perry’s testimony will only serve to hurt Donald Trump. But at this point an increasing number of House and Senate Republicans are transitioning into butt-covering mode, because they think Trump might go down, and they don’t want their own chances of reelection to get damaged in the process.
Now that there’s even a Republican push for Rick Perry to testify, we expect it’ll happen sooner rather than later. Rick Perry did announce today that he’s defying a House impeachment inquiry subpoena, but we don’t take that as a sign that he’s planning to remain loyal to Trump. Perry was up against a hard deadline today to turn over documents. Even if he is cooperating, his lawyers will try to negotiate the most favorable terms of cooperation possible before turning anything over. Perry flipping on Trump became largely a foregone conclusion the minute Sondland flipped while invoking Perry’s name.
