DOJ seizes Rep. Scott Perry’s cellphone in Donald Trump probe – and all bets are off now
When the DOJ carried out a search and seizure warrant at Donald Trump’s home yesterday, it was a lawfully executed endeavor – complete with a signature from a federal judge. But even as proper as it all was, it was still effectively kicking over an ant hill. Trump is scrambling. His Republican allies are vowing retaliation. Once you kick over an ant hill, you have to be prepared to move quickly after that.
So it’s perhaps no surprise that the DOJ is already moving forward with other big moves today. House Republican Scott Perry has announced to Fox News that the FBI seized his cellphone today. The January 6th Committee has made a point of singling out Perry for his alleged role in Trump’s election overthrow plot, and now it’s clear that the DOJ also views Perry as a key player in all of this. Perry will whine and play victim, but a federal judge also signed off on this warrant, so this is obviously not a partisan thing.
What’s intriguing here is that while yesterday’s FBI action at Trump’s home appears to be part of the DOJ’s probe into Trump’s classified document scandal, today’s seizure of Scott Perry’s cellphone is presumably part of the DOJ’s probe into Trump’s election overthrow plot.
Up to now, the shards of publicly available information that have surfaced about these two probes suggested that they were operating separately from each other. But this timing – carrying out a warrant against Trump in the one probe yesterday, and carrying out a warrant against Perry in the other probe today – suggests that perhaps the two probes have been merged into one. Or perhaps they both now simply have the green light to take anthill-kicking action. In any case, look for more big moves soon. We’re in that stage of things now.
