On Monday, CNN made public almost 2,500 texts they’d obtained, showing correspondences with former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows from the 2020 election through the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot. There was a lot of damning evidence. Marjorie Taylor Greene was shown to have floated the idea of Donald Trump invoking Martial Law. Sean Hannity had effectively let Meadows tell Fox News how to cover Election Day.
But none were as embarrassing as a text from Rick Perry. The former Texas governor and, for a time, Trump’s Secretary of Energy has a long history of saying and doing dunkable things. But this one might take the cake. Buried in CNN’s report is a chaotic text from Perry’s phone on November 7, the day news outlets started calling the race for Joe Biden, in which he claims to have stumbled upon data that can “clearly show where the fraud was committed.”
A spokesperson for Perry denied that he was the “author of the text.” There’s just one problem: The text ends with the words “Rick Perry,” showing he’d signed it.
Incredible: Rick Perry denied sending text messages to Mark Meadows with suggestions about overturning the election results, except that he signed one of his text messages "Rick Perry" with his phone numberhttps://t.co/3GAFE15rjv
— Molly Hensley-Clancy (@mollyhc) April 25, 2022
The full text, complete with random quote:
We have the data driven program that can clearly show where the fraud was committed. This is the silver bullet.”Pam Biondi has seen and agrees!!” Rick Perry
CNN’s Chris Cillizza played ball and laid out how Perry could not be the person who sent a text from his own phone:
So, in order to now believe Rick Perry’s initial denials, you have to believe:
1. Someone got Perry’s phone without him knowing about it.
2. That same person texted Meadows repeatedly about ways to possibly overturn the election.
3. That person, ingeniously, signed the texts “Rick Perry.”
So, either you believe that or you believe that the texts from Rick Perry’s phone and signed “Rick Perry” were, in fact, from Rick Perry.
In other words, this may be yet another case in which a Republican lawmaker, like Greene or Kevin McCarthy, simply lies. And why not? Surely they know they’ll never be punished because of it, nor will their base seem to care.
(Via CNN)