The Washington Post - USA (2021-12-25)

A2 EZ M2 THE WASHINGTON POST.SATURDAY, DECEMBER 25 , 2021

coroner’s office identified the 14-

year-old girl who was fatally shot

by Los Angeles police Thursday

when officers fired on an assault

suspect and a bullet went

through the wall and struck the

girl as she was in a clothing store

dressing room. Police also fatally

shot the suspect at a Burlington

store in the North Hollywood

area of the San Fernando Valley,

police said. The Los Angeles

County coroner identified the

girl as Valentina Orellana-

Peralta. The suspect’s name was

not released. LAPD officers have

shot at least 37 people — 17

fatally — in 2021 after another

shooting Friday, according to the

Los Angeles Times, a dramatic

rise in cases where officers shot

or killed people in either of the

past two years.

— From news services

Two die in California as storms

hit coast: Two people died in a

submerged car, evacuations were

ordered for wildfire-scarred

California, and Seattle and

Portland faced the rare chance of

snowy streets as a wave of

storms rolled through the West.

The new storms follow a now-

departed atmospheric river that

delivered copious amounts of

precipitation this week. On

Thursday, two people died when

their car was submerged in a

flooded underpass in Millbrae,

Calif., south of San Francisco.

Firefighters saved two people

who climbed atop a car, but they

couldn’t reach the vehicle, San

Mateo County sheriff ’s detective

Javier Acosta said.

Los Angeles police kill suspect,

girl in dressing room: The

some personnel wear masks

while others do not. Navy

vessels, where personnel live in

tight quarters while at sea, are

particularly vulnerable to the

coronavirus. The U.S. military’s

first major coronavirus outbreak

happened last year aboard the

USS Theodore Roosevelt,

sidelining the aircraft carrier for

several weeks in Guam after

more than 1,000 personnel

tested positive.

U.S. military personnel are

required to be vaccinated

against the coronavirus, but tens

of thousands of service members

have resisted those orders.

Across the Navy, about 9,

sailors remained only partially

vaccinated as of this week,

according to data maintained by

the Pentagon.

— Andrew deGrandpre

tested positive for the virus have

displayed mild symptoms,

Meadows said. Officials have not

determined whether the highly

transmissible omicron variant is

responsible for the outbreak.

The Milwaukee deployed from

its home station in Mayport, Fla.,

on Dec. 14. In a news release

announcing the ship’s departure,

the Navy said that apart from

the ship’s crew, there is a

detachment of Coast Guard law

enforcement personnel on

board, plus an aviation unit

responsible for operating

embarked helicopters and

drones. It was not immediately

clear whether the coronavirus

outbreak had affected any of

those passengers.

Photographs of the ship’s

crew, distributed by the Navy

over the past month, show that

MILITARY

Coronavirus outbreak

sidelines Navy ship

A coronavirus outbreak

aboard the USS Milwaukee,

whose entire crew was “

percent immunized,” has forced

the ship to remain in port after a

scheduled stop in Cuba barely

one week into its deployment,

the Navy announced Friday.

An unspecified “portion” of

the Milwaukee’s 105-person crew

is isolated on board the ship,

according to Cmdr. Kate

Meadows, a spokesperson for

U.S. Naval Forces Southern

Command. The Navy does not

disclose infection counts “at the

crew/unit level,” she said in an

email.

Some of the personnel who

CORRECTIONS

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Some reports that you may have

missed. Read more at

washingtonpost.com.

White House takes aim

at vehicle emissions

In its biggest step yet to tackle
climate change, the Biden
administration finalized a rule
Monday to cut pollutants from
new cars and light trucks — for
model years 2023-2026 — which
will keep billions of tons of
carbon dioxide from entering the
atmosphere and change the type
of vehicles Americans drive.
washingtonpost.com/national

Kellogg’s workers

agree to end strike

Unionized Kellogg’s workers
in four states approved a new
five-year contract, ending an 11-
week strike, one of the longest of

2021. The contract includes wage
      and cost-of-living rises, as well as
      expanded benefits, and partially
      addresses some worker concerns
      about a two-tiered workforce.
      washingtonpost.com/business

D.C. officer who was

beaten Jan. 6 to resign

Michael Fanone, the D.C.
police officer who was dragged
into a mob and beaten during
the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S.
Capitol and later excoriated
lawmakers and others who
downplayed the attack, said he
submitted his resignation
Monday. The 41-year-old officer
will officially depart on Dec. 31.
washingtonpost.com/local

Youngkin announces

education secretary

Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R)
named Aimee Rogstad Guidera,
a consultant and national expert
on the use of data in education
policy, as his choice for Virginia
education secretary, the first
appointment he has announced
for the administration that will
take office Jan. 15.
washingtonpost.com/local

KLMNO

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DIGEST

BY BETH REINHARD

AND MARIANA ALFARO

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) has

been fanning false claims for

years, long before his efforts to

overturn the 2020 election based

on former president Donald

Trump’s baseless allegations drew

the attention of the House com-

mittee investigating the Jan. 6

attack on the Capitol.

In the fall of 2017, Perry claimed

a former House aide to Rep. Deb-

bie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)

orchestrated “massive” data

transfers that amounted to a “sub-

stantial security threat,” accord-

ing to Fox News. The Pakistani

American staffer, Imran Awan,

was later cleared of stealing gov-

ernment secrets by federal pros-

ecutors.

Around the same time, Perry

suggested then-CNN host Chris

Cuomo was exaggerating the lack

of water and electricity in hurri-

cane-devastated Puerto Rico.

“You’re simply just making this

stuff up,” Perry said. Hurricane

Maria was later tied to nearly

3,000 deaths.

In January 2018, Perry specu-

lated about an Islamic State con-

nection to the mass shooting in

Las Vegas the previous year, con-

tradicting law enforcement’s as-

sertion that the accused gunman

was working alone. “I smell a rat

like a lot of Americans,” he said.

Perry’s incendiary remarks in

recent years made bold headlines

that quickly faded. Now, the five-

term congressman and incoming

chairman of the hard-right House

Freedom Caucus has drawn the

scrutiny of the bipartisan House

panel probing the deadly insur-

rection by a pro-Trump mob.

On Tuesday, Perry rebuffed the

committee’s request for commu-

nications and voluntary testimo-

ny, the first significant action the

panel has taken to obtain infor-

mation from a sitting member of

Congress.

“I stand with immense respect

for our Constitution, the Rule of

Law, and the Americans I repre-

sent who know that this entity is

illegitimate, and not duly consti-

tuted under the rules of the U.S.

House of Representatives,” Perry

said in a statement. “I decline this

entity’s request and will continue

to fight the failures of the radical

Left.”

The committee, which was es-

tablished by a vote of the full

House, is interested in Perry’s ef-

forts to help install Jeffrey Clark, a

Justice Department official sym-

pathetic to Trump’s

stolen-election claims, as acting

attorney general. Perry intro-

duced Clark to Trump, according

to a Senate Judiciary Committee

report released in October that

named Clark as a key figure in the

attempt to overturn the election.

The Senate report found that

Perry, along with Pennsylvania

state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R),

pressured top law enforcement

officials to investigate the state’s

2020 election results. According

to the report, Perry and Mastriano

contacted Richard Donoghue,

who was the Justice Department’s

second-ranking official, to urge

him to investigate Trump’s spuri-

ous claims of widespread voter

fraud.

Donoghue told Senate investi-

gators that during one conversa-

tion with Perry, the congressman

complained “generally about the

FBI” and the Awan investigation.

Perry and his office declined

repeated requests Tuesday for

comment from The Washington

Post about that probe, as well as

his record in Congress, public pol-

icy views and past public state-

ments.

In 2017, during the investiga-

tion into Awan, Perry reached out

to the U.S. attorney for the District

of Columbia, whose office was

handling the probe as well as a

separate investigation into the

murder of Democratic National

Committee staffer Seth Rich. Per-

ry raised concerns in an Aug. 11

letter to Channing D. Phillips that

a federal prosecutor in his office,

the brother of former DNC chair-

woman Wasserman Schultz, faced

potential conflicts of interest re-

garding the two investigations.

At the time, right-wing con-

spiracy theorists were casting

Awan as a Pakistani government

agent and Rich as the leaker of

DNC documents during the 2016

campaign. Those allegations were

debunked. The congresswoman’s

brother had nothing to do with

either investigation, which were

handled by separate sections of

the U.S. attorney’ office, according

to a Dec. 18 response from the

Justice Department’s legislative

affairs office. Perry’s letter and the

response became available

through public records requests.

“It was kind of ludicrous. All

these conspiracy theories were

running around, and there was no

merit to any of them,” Phillips, a

Democrat and former career pros-

ecutor who is now retired, said in

an interview with The Post on

Tuesday. “He had his facts wrong,

that’s all I can say.”

Perry, a combat veteran who

began his political career as a state

representative in Pennsylvania,

worked from an early age picking

fruit at a farm in Mechanicsburg,

Pa. The grandson of Colombian

immigrants and the son of a single

mom who fled abusive partners,

Perry was raised in a home he

describes as “spartan” in his cam-

paign biography. His family relied

on public assistance for several

years. He found jobs as a mechan-

ic, dock worker and insurance

agent before graduating from

Pennsylvania State University. By

1993, he was running his own

mechanical contracting firm.

Trump endorsed Perry in his

2018 and 2020 reelection bids,

tweeting in May 2020 that Perry is

“an incredible fighter for Pennsyl-

vania.” Perry has long relied on his

working-class background to rally

support among his rural Pennsyl-

vania base.

“He’s overcome a lot in life to

get to Congress, and he’s not giv-

ing up, though all he does is push

this extreme rhetoric,” said Demo-

crat Eugene DePasquale, the for-

mer Pennsylvania auditor general

who unsuccessfully challenged

Perry in 2020 and is considering a

rematch.

Perry’s record reflects his alle-

giance to the far right. Last year,

he was among 18 House Republi-

cans to vote against a resolution

condemning QAnon, a conspiracy

theory that Trump is fighting a

war against a satanic, child sex

trafficking ring run by the “deep

state.” The FBI has labeled the

online movement a potential do-

mestic terrorist threat.

In March, Perry voted in oppo-

sition to the Violence Against

Women Act, despite fellow Penn-

sylvania Congressman Brian Fitz-

patrick being the bill’s chief Re-

publican sponsor. Two months

later, he opposed the Covid-

Hate Crimes act, which called for

protecting Asian Americans amid

a rise in hate crimes during the

pandemic.

Perry criticized the Biden ad-

ministration’s decision to pull

troops out of Afghanistan and vot-

ed against a bipartisan bill to ex-

pedite visas for Afghan refugees.

He later told journalist Greta Van

Susteren that allowing more Af-

ghan refugees into the country

would lead to “little girls raped

and killed in the streets.”

Earlier this month, Perry base-

lessly accused Rep. Ilhan Omar

(D-Minn.), one of three Muslim

members of Congress and the co-

sponsor of a bill to combat Islamo-

phobia abroad, of sympathizing

with terrorists.

Throughout the pandemic, Per-

ry has questioned the efficacy of

masks and vaccines. He has de-

clined to respond to questions

about whether he has been vacci-

nated against the coronavirus. He

tested positive for it last month

and said his symptoms were

“quite mild.”

“This government is saying

you’ll inject something into your

body whether you want to or not,”

Perry said at a news conference at

the Capitol in July. “That’s the

definition of tyranny.”

During the Jan. 6 attack, as

lawmakers hunkered down in a

room keeping them safe from the

rioters descending on the Capitol,

Perry was among a group of Re-

publicans who refused to wear

masks, according to video posted

by Punchbowl News.

In January, Perry’s profile will

rise even higher when he becomes

the leader of the House Freedom

Caucus, a group formed in 2015 by

conservative Republicans frus-

trated with GOP leaders for com-

promising with Democrats. Mem-

bers of the caucus include Reps.

Paul A. Gosar (Ariz.) and Marjorie

Taylor Greene (Ga.) — both of

whom have endorsed Trump’s

groundless theories of election

fraud.

If Republicans take control of

the House in next year’s midterm

elections, the Freedom Caucus

could have a key role in picking

the next House speaker.

“We have fought together for

conservative values in the face of

fierce Socialist Democrat and

RINO Republican opposition,”

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), a co-

founder of the Freedom Caucus,

said last month, using a pejorative

term that means “Republican in

Name Only.”

“At this pivotal moment in his-

tory, strong fighters are vital to

protecting our foundational prin-

ciples and freedoms. Scott Perry

fits that bill,” he said.

Perry currently serves on the

House Foreign Affairs and Trans-

portation and Infrastructure

committees.

During his first three cam-

paigns for Congress, Perry handily

won his solidly Republican dis-

trict in central Pennsylvania. In

2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme

Court reconfigured the state’s

congressional districts, setting

new boundaries for Perry’s seat

with more Democratic areas.

Perry defeated DePasquale by

6.6 percentage points in 2020.

Perry also faces a potential re-

election challenge from Brian Al-

len, a former Republican who said

he left the party because it em-

braced Trump’s baseless accusa-

tions of a rigged election.

“There’s been a drip, drip, drip

of information on Perry and how

intimately he was involved in try-

ing to overthrow the election,”

DePasquale said in an interview

Tuesday. “For the Jan. 6 commit-

tee to take this step and seek an

interview with a sitting member

of Congress means they feel it is

serious.”

According to the Senate Judici-

ary report authored by the Demo-

cratic majority, Perry was one of

the first Republicans to cast doubt

on the 2020 election, saying four

days after the vote that “legal

votes will determine who is PO-

TUS, not the news media.” Perry

led the objection to counting

Pennsylvania’s electoral votes on

the House floor in the hours im-

mediately following the Jan. 6 in-

surrection. Republicans on Sen-

ate panel offered counterfindings,

arguing that Trump did not sub-

vert the justice system to remain

in power.

“The review of what happened

in 2020 is legitimate, and Scott

Perry is obviously a leader,” said

former Pennsylvania Republican

Party chairman Rob Gleason. “I

stand by the fact that there are still

a lot of concerns about the elec-

tion.”

According to a Monday letter by

Jan. 6 committee chairman Ben-

nie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), Perry

communicated with Trump’s for-

mer chief of staff Mark Meadows

about Clark, the official who

sought to use Justice Department

resources to support Trump’s false

claims of massive voting fraud.

People familiar with documents

Meadows turned in to the com-

mittee say it was Perry who

flagged the chief of staff about his

encrypted messages. Perry has de-

nied sending the “Please check

your Signal” text to Meadows.

“Representative Perry has in-

formation directly relevant to our

investigation,” a committee

spokesman said Tuesday, adding

that the committee would consid-

er “other tools” to get evidence

from members who decline to co-

operate voluntarily. One week

ago, the committee voted to hold

Meadows in contempt for defying

a subpoena.

Perry acknowledged that he

had introduced Trump to Clark in

a January statement in which he

said he had worked with the Jus-

tice Department official in the

Civil Division on “various legisla-

tive matters.” Perry also said:

“When President Trump asked if I

would make an introduction to

Clark, I obliged.”

[email protected]

[email protected]

Years before 2020, Perry bolstered false claims

Congressman’s efforts to

overturn election draw

scrutiny of Jan. 6 panel

AMANDA ANDRADE-RHOADES/SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), a five-term congressman and incoming chairman of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, made incendiary

remarks in recent years that made bold headlines.

“I decline this entity’s

request and will

continue to fight

the failures of the

radical Left.”

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.),

in rebuffing the Jan. 6 panel

Banca do Antfer

Telegram: https://t.me/bancadoantfer

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