What does the FBI want from the Pennsylvania lawmakers its agents visited and handed subpoenas to this week? That has not been publicly released yet, but their visit makes clear federal investigators’ probe into attempts to tamper with the 2020 election continues to sprawl.
In June, they raided the home of Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official who was seen as friendly to Donald Trump’s false claims the 2020 election was rigged. Earlier this week, they seized the phone of Scott Perry, a Republican congressman from Pennsylvania who was another backer of the lie that the election was stolen.
According to the Patriot-News, Perry said he was informed that he wasn’t a target of whatever the FBI was investigating, and that he would cooperate. However both Clark and Perry’s names have come up in recent hearings of the January 6 committee, particularly Clark’s, after Trump mounted a failed effort to install him as the head of the justice department to allegedly disrupt the certification of the election results. Perry has meanwhile been pointed to as the person who connected Trump’s confidantes in the White House with Clark.
The takeaway from all this is that while the relationship between the January 6 committee’s investigation and the FBI’s is murky, it’s clear that they are interested in the same people.
Key events
FBI hands subpoenas to Pennsylvania Republicans while Trump keeps mum on Mar-a-Lago
Good morning, US politics blog readers. The Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Patriot-News is reporting that the FBI delivered subpoenas or visited the offices of several Republican state lawmakers over the past two days. While it’s unclear what the investigators wanted, the interaction came around the time agents seized the phone of a Republican congressman from the state whose name has come up repeatedly as being involved in efforts to stop Joe Biden from taking office following the 2020 election. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has yet to say much more about the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this week – besides complaining that it happened at all.
Here’s what else is going on today:
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Gas prices have dipped under $4 a gallon on average, according to AAA, reversing the spike that happened in recent months and badly damaged Biden’s approval rating.
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Many members of Congress are expected to attend the funeral for Jackie Walorski, who was killed in a car accident last week, along with two of her staffers.
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Biden is on vacation in South Carolina, with nothing on his agenda, though he’s certainly keeping abreast of lawmakers’ moves to pass his top legislative priority, the Inflation Reduction Act, which the House of Representatives may do tomorrow.
