- Rick Perry likely authored a text outlining a strategy to undermine election results, CNN reported.
- The text said GOP-controlled state legislatures could have electors vote for Trump regardless of the result.
The former Texas Governor and Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry is believed to be the author of a text to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows outlining a strategy to undermine the results of the 2020 election, a CNN report says.
On Tuesday night, the text was read on the House floor during a vote to hold Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress.
The text sent on November 4, 2020 – the day after the presidential election – suggested that the Republican-controlled state legislatures of Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania could go against voters and have their state electors vote for Donald Trump.
It read: "HERE's an AGRESSIVE [sic] STRATEGY: Why can t [sic] the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is BS (where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS."
Three sources familiar with the January 6 House committee investigating the Capitol attack told CNN that members believe Perry was behind the text.
The outlet reported that "multiple people" who know Perry confirmed that the cell phone number used to send the text is his.
Furthermore, CNN found that the phone number appears in databases as registered to James Richard Perry of Texas, the former governor's full name.
The number also appears in another database registered to a Department of Energy email address associated with Perry during his time as secretary, the outlet reported.
A spokesman for Perry told CNN that he denies being the author of the text but had no explanation when asked about the evidence suggesting it came from his number.
The text message is one of many included in the 9,000 pages of records handed over by Mark Meadows to the House committee.
Although Meadows initially cooperated with the House investigation, he later declined to sit for a scheduled deposition, and on Wednesday, the House voted to hold him in contempt.
During the debate, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, cited the text message as to why the House wants to question Meadows directly.
"How did this text influence the planning of Mark Meadows and Donald Trump to try to destroy the lawful electoral college majority that had been established by the people of the United States and the states for Joe Biden?" Raskin said on the House floor.
"Those are the kinds of questions that we have a right to ask Mark Meadows."
Although Raskin described the text as having come from a "House lawmaker," sources told CNN that this was an inadvertent error. The congressman has written a letter to correct the Congressional record.
The text was sent before any of the three mentioned states had declared winners. President Joe Biden won Pennsylvania and Georgia, and Trump won North Carolina.
Perry, who briefly bid to be the Republican candidate for president in 2016, was once a fierce critic of Trump, calling his candidacy "a cancer on conservatism."
However, he later allied himself with the president, claiming Trump was "sent by God to do great things."
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