GOP Rep. Scott Perry invokes attorney-client privilege, spousal privilege, and the US Constitution in new suit seeking to block government investigators from searching his phone

• Republican Rep. Scott Perry is suing to keep feds from digging through his cell phone records.
• FBI agents copied the phone's data in early August, but apparently haven't analyzed it yet.

Embattled Rep. Scott Perry says in a new lawsuit that the US Constitution's speech and debate clause, attorney-client privilege, "and other applicable privileges and protections" prohibit federal agents from scouring his confiscated cell phone for any potentially incriminating evidence about Trumps' efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

"Because the government has seized 'records and information' which it does not have authority to search, all such records and information must be returned to Rep. Perry promptly," Perry's attorneys wrote in an emergency motion seeking to block the Department of Justice and FBI from sifting through any information gathered after seizing Perry's cell phone earlier this month.

The Pennsylvania Republican is one of the half-dozen MAGA House lawmakers who have refused to cooperate with the January 6 select committee's ongoing investigation into the deadly siege at the US Capitol.

Perry was allegedly involved in working to install Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark as attorney general in order to facilitate former President Donald Trump's unlawful scheme to negate Joe Biden's 2020 victory.

Perry's sweeping privilege claims echo similar arguments made by Trump, who is battling a DOJ investigation into classified documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago, as well as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, whose fight against testifying in Georgia about Trump's baseless election fraud claims is still wending its way through the courts.

While law enforcement took control of Perry's cell phone and copied all its contents on August 9, Perry's latest legal filing aims to head off a second search warrant dictating what would be fair game. Perry's lawyers assert that he alone is qualified to determine "which records are protected and which are not."

"It is improbable that the government can establish probable cause of a nexus between any, let alone every, file on Rep. Perry's phone and whatever alleged criminal behavior it is investigating," the attorneys wrote.