I think that Scott Perry’s use of telegram messenger encryption shows mens rea.
Whether or not he believed “Italy Gate” is real is something else.
Mens Rea refers to criminal intent. The literal translation from Latin is "guilty mind."
WATCH THIS VIDEO FIRST
I know it takes a while but this video makes the conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 Election a little easier to understand. And you will laugh:
Scott Perry (politician) Involvement in attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Perry was "one of the leading figures in the effort to throw out Pennsylvania’s votes in the 2020 presidential election."[72]
After the election, Perry promoted false claims of election fraud.[73][74] Days after the election, in text messages to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Perry suggested John Ratcliffe should direct the National Security Agency to investigate alleged Chinese hacking. Perry also asserted "the Brits" were behind a conspiracy to manipulate voting machines and that CIA director Gina Haspel was covering it up. The next month, he sent Meadows a link to a YouTube video that asserted voting machines had been manipulated via satellite from Italy; Meadows later sent the video to former Acting Attorney General Richard Donoghue, seeking an investigation.[75][76][77] Donoghue told the committee the contentions in the video, originating from QAnon and far-right platforms which had been brought to the White House, were "pure insanity."[78]
Perry was one of 126 Republican House members to sign an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed at the United States Supreme Court contesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Joe Biden defeated Trump.[79][80]
Perry reportedly played a key role in a December 2020 crisis at the Justice Department, in which Trump considered firing Rosen and replacing him with Jeffrey Clark, the acting chief of the civil division of the DOJ.[74] According to The Los Angeles Times, Perry "prompted" Trump to consider the replacement.[81] The New York Times reported that Perry introduced Clark to Trump because Clark's "openness to conspiracy theories about election fraud presented Mr. Trump with a welcome change from Rosen, who stood by the results of the election and had repeatedly resisted the president's efforts to undo them."[74] Before the certification of the electoral college vote on January 6, Perry and Clark reportedly discussed a plan in which the Justice Department would send Georgia legislators a letter suggesting the DOJ had evidence of voter fraud and suggesting the legislators invalidate Georgia's electoral votes, even though the DOJ had investigated reports of fraud but found nothing significant, as attorney general Bill Barr had publicly announced weeks earlier.[74][82] Clark drafted a letter to Georgia officials and presented it to Rosen and his deputy Richard Donoghue. It claimed the DOJ had "identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States" and urged the Georgia legislature to convene a special session for the "purpose of considering issues pertaining to the appointment of Presidential Electors." Rosen and Donoghue rejected the proposal.[83] In August 2021, CNN reported that Ratcliffe had briefed top Justice Department officials that no evidence had been found of any foreign powers' interference with voting machines. Clark was reportedly concerned that intelligence community analysts were withholding information and believed Perry and others knew more about possible foreign interference. Clark requested authorization from Rosen and Donoghue for another briefing from Ratcliffe, asserting hackers had found that "a Dominion machine accessed the Internet through a smart thermostat with a net connection trail leading back to China."[84]
On January 6, 2021, Perry joined Missouri senator Josh Hawley in objecting to counting Pennsylvania's electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election.[85] During the storming of the U.S. Capitol that day, Perry and his congressional colleagues were ushered to a secure location.[86]
On December 20, 2021, House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack chairman Bennie Thompson wrote to Perry asking him to provide information about his involvement in the effort to install Clark as acting attorney general. Thompson believed Perry had been involved in the effort to install Clark, given previous testimony from Rosen and Donoghue, as well as communications between Perry and Meadows.[87][88][89] Perry declined the request the next day, asserting the committee was illegitimate.[90] Among several text messages to Meadows the committee released on December 14 was one attributed to a "member of Congress" dated January 5 that read "Please check your signal", a reference to the encrypted messaging system Signal. In his letter to Perry, Thompson mentioned evidence that Perry had communicated with Meadows using Signal, though Perry denied sending that particular text message.[91][92][88] CNN acquired and published additional Meadows text messages in April 2022 that confirmed Perry had sent that message.[75]
On June 9, 2022, Select Committee member Liz Cheney said that Perry requested a presidential pardon from Trump in the weeks after the January 6 attack.[93][94] On June 10, Perry denied Cheney's assertion, calling it "an absolute, shameless, and soulless lie".[95] On June 23, 2022, the Select Committee broadcast testimony from witnesses who said Perry and others had requested pardons. That included testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Meadows, that Perry was one of several lawmakers who contacted her to "inquire about preemptive pardons."[96] In response, Perry said he had never spoken with any White House staff about a pardon for him or any other members of Congress: "this never happened."[97][77]
On August 9, 2022, Perry reported that three FBI agents had seized his cellphone after presenting him with a warrant. He called the seizure an "unnecessary and aggressive action".[98]
Text messages released in December 2022 documented Perry's involvement in the historically unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. [99]
Business career
In 1993, Perry founded Hydrotech Mechanical Services, Inc., a mechanical contracting firm in Dillsburg. The firm provides contract construction and maintenance services to municipal and investor-owned utilities from North Carolina to New York, specializing in large meter calibration. In 2002, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection accused the company of altering sewage monitoring reports while doing work for the Memphord Estates Sewage Treatment Company. Perry faced criminal charges of conspiring to falsify state-mandated sewage records. In the aftermath of the investigation and review, he was allowed to complete a diversion program and avoid any criminal charges, which allowed him to maintain his U.S security clearance.[12][13]
U.S. House of Representatives
Elections
2012
Main article: 2012 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania § District 4
In 2012, Perry gave up his state house seat to run for the 4th congressional district. The district had previously been the 19th district, represented by six-term incumbent Republican Todd Platts, who was giving up the seat to honor a self-imposed term limit. In 2010, when Platts wanted to become U.S. Comptroller General, he spoke to Perry about running for the seat.[19]
Perry won a seven-way primary with over 50% of the vote. Although outspent nearly 2 to 1 in the campaign, he beat his closest competitor with nearly three times as many votes.[citation needed] Political newcomer Harry Perkinson, an engineer,[20] advanced in a two-way Democratic primary.[21] Perry won the general election, 60%–34%.[22]
2014
Main article: 2014 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania § District 4
In 2014, Perry was unopposed in the Republican primary and the former Harrisburg mayor, Linda D. Thompson, was unopposed in the Democratic primary.[23] Perry won the general election, 75%–25%.[24]
2016
Main article: 2016 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania § District 4
Perry won the 2016 election with no primary challenge and no official Democratic opponent. Joshua Burkholder of Harrisburg, a political novice, withdrew from the Democratic primary after too many signatures on his qualifying petition were successfully challenged. His subsequent write-in candidacy won the Democratic primary, but he was unaffiliated in the general election.[25][26][27][28][29] Perry defeated Burkholder, 66%–34%.[30]
2018
Main article: 2018 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania § District 10
After ruling the state's congressional map an unconstitutional gerrymander, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a new map for the 2018 elections. Perry's district was renumbered the 10th and made significantly more compact than its predecessor. It lost most of the more rural and Republican areas of York County to the neighboring 11th district (the old 16th). To make up for the loss in population, it was pushed slightly to the north, absorbing the remainder of Democratic-leaning Dauphin County that had not been in the old 4th.[31] On paper, the new district was less Republican than its predecessor. Had the district existed in 2016, Donald Trump would have won it with 52% of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 43%;[32] Trump carried the old 4th with 58% of the vote.[33]
Pastor and Army veteran George Scott won the Democratic primary by a narrow margin and opposed Perry in the general election for the reconfigured 10th. The two debated in October before Perry won with 51.3% of the vote to Scott's 48.7%, with the new district boundaries taking effect in 2019.[34][35][36][37] Perry held on by winning the district's share of his home county, York County, by 11,600 votes.[38] This was the district's closest race since 1974, when Bill Goodling won his first term in what was then the 19th with 51% of the vote.[39]
2020
Main article: 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania § District 10
In 2020, Perry had no Republican primary challenge, and the Pennsylvania auditor general, Eugene DePasquale, won a two-way Democratic primary.[40] Perry was reelected with 53% of the vote in the general election.[41][42]
2022
Main article: 2022 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania § District 10
Tenure
Perry is a member of the Freedom Caucus.[43] In November 2021, he was elected to chair the group, succeeding Andy Biggs in January 2022.[44]
In October 2017, in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Perry accused CNN anchor Chris Cuomo of exaggerating the crisis in Puerto Rico.[45]
In January 2018, Perry suggested that ISIS might have been involved in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, but authorities have maintained that gunman Stephen Paddock acted alone.[46][47][48]
In December 2019, Perry was one of 195 Republicans to vote against both articles of impeachment against President Trump.[49]
In October 2020, Perry was one of 17 Republicans to vote against a House resolution to formally condemn the QAnon conspiracy theory.[50] He said he voted against the resolution because he was concerned about infringements on free speech, saying, "it's very dangerous for the government ... to determine what is okay to like and what is not okay to like."[51][52]
In March 2021, Perry voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.[53][54] He said only 9% of the act's spending was allotted to defeat the COVID-19 virus, while the rest would advance Democratic policies.[55]
In April 2021, at a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee meeting on immigration, days after Fox News host Tucker Carlson promoted the Great Replacement theory, Perry said, "For many Americans, what seems to be happening or what they believe right now is happening is, what appears to them is we're replacing national-born American—native-born Americans to permanently transform the political landscape of this very nation."[56]
In June 2021, Perry was one of 21 House Republicans to vote against a resolution to give the Congressional Gold Medal to police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6.[57] He cosponsored a bill, introduced the same day, that would give the same medal to police officers without mentioning the attack.[58]
At the June 2021 Republican Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, Perry said Democrats "are not the loyal opposition. They are the opposition to everything you love and believe in" and "want to destroy the country you grew up in", invoking comparisons to Nazis.[59][60]
In July 2022, Perry was among 47 House Republicans to vote for the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and protect the right to same-sex marriage at a federal level.[61] Perry said, "Agree or disagree with same-sex marriage, my vote affirmed my long-held belief that Americans who enter into legal agreements deserve to live their lives without the threat that our federal government will dissolve what they've built."[62] Four months later, in an interview with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Perry said he was tricked because he did not want to appear racist by voting against the bill, which also protects interracial marriage.[63] Perry voted against final passage on December 8, 2022.[64]
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FROM WIKIPEDIA Scott Perry (politician)
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Italygate is a pro-Trump, QAnon-affiliated[1][2] conspiracy theory that alleges the 2020 United States presidential election was rigged to favor Joe Biden using satellites and military technology to remotely switch votes from Donald Trump to Biden from the U.S. Embassy in Rome.[1] The conspiracy was also rumored to involve the Vatican.[2] Fact-checkers at Reuters and USA Today, who investigated these claims, described them as "false" and "baseless".[1][3]
Contents
- 1 Details and propagation of theory
- 2 Role of Mark Meadows
- 3 See also
- 4 References
Details and propagation of theory
See also: Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election
Maria Strollo Zack, a Georgia-based lobbyist and leader of the 501(c)4 organization Nations in Action, said she told Trump about the conspiracy theory at his Mar-a-Lago resort on December 24, 2020.[4] On December 29, Mark Meadows forwarded a letter explaining the Italygate claims to acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen.[4] The letter was printed on the letterhead of USAerospace Partners, a company led by Republican businesswoman Michele Roosevelt Edwards.[4]
On January 6, 2021, the Institute for Good Governance—a firm also headed by Edwards—released a joint statement with Nations in Action[5] stating an Italian hacker named Arturo D'Elia had confessed to "using Leonardo computer systems and military satellites located in Pescara, Italy" to change U.S. election results.[4] The Italian bureau of prisons later said it was investigating how two American men gained access to the Salerno prison where they tried to interrogate D'Elia.[6] D'Elia told reporters that he had refused to speak with the Americans, and that he had no connection to the alleged conspiracy, saying, "I didn't steal anything. I didn’t pass anything to anyone. I just created malware."[7]
According to Zack, the operation had been coordinated by the American embassy in Rome, with the help of Italian general Claudio Graziano who was a member of the board of Leonardo.[4][1][8] Also on January 6, Media Matters for America reported supporters of the theory were trying to get "#ItalyDidIt" to trend on Twitter. Related posts were retweeted by QAnon promoter Ron Watkins and other conspiracy theorists affiliated with the movement.[9]
On January 11, a power blackout in Vatican City sparked a rumor among QAnon followers that Pope Francis had been arrested for his involvement in "Italygate" and that the blackout had been orchestrated by the police in order to cover the operation.[2] Around the same time, a photo circulated on the Internet, which purportedly showed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arresting Italian president Sergio Mattarella for his role in the conspiracy; the picture had actually been taken during Pompeo's October 2020 visit to India and showed Pompeo with ambassador Kenneth Juster.[10]
Role of Mark Meadows
According to The New York Times, during Trump's last weeks in office, his chief of staff Mark Meadows tried to persuade the Department of Justice to investigate these claims. Meadows emailed Rosen a link to a YouTube video about the claims; Rosen forwarded the email to his deputy Richard Donoghue, who responded it was "pure insanity".[11][12][13][14][15] The Washington Post commented that Italygate was "the craziest election fraud conspiracy" pushed by Trump's associates, which showed "just how desperate President Donald Trump and his team were to grab hold of something — anything — that could genuinely cast doubt on his election defeat”.[16]
