(FreedomBeacon.com)- Republican Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania is demanding that the FBI return his cell phone that they confiscated, according to the Daily Mail. The representative is also suing the FBI to prevent accessing its data as they seek to execute a second search warrant against him. He also notes that the two agents who executed the search were part of the Washington field office.
The filing says that the agents took the phone away while he was vacationing with his family, then returned the physical phone after taking a forensic image of it. Perry has been subpoenaed by the partisan January 6th Select Committee as they investigate the so-called “fake electors” scheme. The Department of Justice is investigating Perry’s roll in trying to elect a new slate of electors to Congress after Trump was determined to have lost the 2020 election amid rampant claims of voter fraud across the country.
According to the select committee, Perry was advising the White House over installing Jeffrey Clark to the Justice Department in the last weeks of the Trump administration. As the FBI seeks to execute its second search warrant to extract data from the cellphone, Perry is slapping them with a lawsuit, as he claims that members of Congress are protected by the ‘Speech and Debate’ clause of the Constitution.
The Speech and Debate clause has protected congressmen from prosecution over what they say as a public official or other parts of their official duties. It states that “For any Speech or Debate in either House [lawmakers] shall not be questioned in any other place.” Perry alleges that the clause allows him and other representatives to make their own determinations on what information must be protected rather than have the government make that determination in their review.
The seizure came after the select committee asked Perry to voluntarily come in for a review.
