Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-06), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, called on Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to rescind his appointment of Rep. Scott Perry (R-10) to the committee.

Houlahan, a third-generation veteran, expressed her concerns in a letter to the House Leader about both Perry and Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) to the committee.

“The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is just that — a select committee of members of Congress, hand-chosen by leadership for their ability to soberly and dispassionately provide oversight of the U.S. Intelligence Community and make decisions about the expansion or winding down of programs,” she wrote. “With integrity, professionalism, and expertise, this committee is responsible for holding some of the most powerful elements of the federal government accountable to the will of the American people and to the rule of law.

“The Intelligence Committee has responsibility for oversight of intelligence gathered from all branches of our military, federal agencies, as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency. By undertaking these responsibilities with thoughtful, steady professionalism, the committee plays a critical role in safeguarding our national security and upholding the Constitutional principles that protect American democracy.

“With the committee’s critical charge and unique jurisdiction in mind, the appointment of any member unfit for such sacred duty creates untenable risk to national security and our democratic norms. Rep. Perry and Rep. Jackson are each unqualified to serve this sacred duty, and both have histories that make them more easily compromised by adversaries, if they are not already, creating a potentially grave risk to our national security.”

She specifically called out Perry for what she described as a “disqualifying conflict of interests.”

“My colleague from Pennsylvania, Rep. Perry, is a larger threat to intelligence oversight. An aide in the Trump administration, Cassidy Hutchinson, has provided testimony that Rep. Perry was a crucial part in the planning of January 6 and that Rep. Perry asked (former President Donald) Trump for a pardon before he left office — indicative of someone who at a minimum believes himself to be above the law and above service to country.

“In 2022, the FBI confiscated Rep. Perry’s phone when investigating the effort to fraudulently overturn the 2020 Presidential election. A federal judge approved a search warrant to review the phone, finding probable cause that a crime was committed and that evidence of that crime would be found on Rep. Perry’s phone. As it turns out, evidence on the phone linked Rep. Perry to the effort to install Jeffrey Clark as Acting Attorney General in order to abuse the powers of the Department of Justice to undermine the results of the election. Clark has since been indicted in Georgia for violating that State’s racketeering law and making false statements during the effort to overturn the 2020 elections, and a disciplinary panel of the bar in Washington, D.C. recommended that Clark be sanctioned or disbarred for his unethical conduct.

“Rep. Perry’s intimate involvement in this scheme with Clark — who happens to be unindicted co-conspirator No. 4 in the ongoing federal election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith against former President Trump and his other co-conspirators — calls into question Rep. Perry’s judgment and portends his lasting entanglement in ongoing federal criminal investigations and prosecutions. If your decision to elevate Rep. Perry to this committee stands, he will be on the very committee that oversees the FBI while he is directly under investigation by this very agency.”

Houlahan closed by requesting that Johnson withdraw Reps. Perry and Jackson as nominees and consider replacing them with other members who she says have “records beyond question.”

“There are literally hundreds of duly elected and upstanding members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who understand the gravity of their responsibilities of oversight, particularly the seriousness of overseeing our nation’s most dear and potentially sensitive intelligence, data and information. These other representatives, many of them Republican, have no record of personal misconduct or entanglement in criminal activity, no active conflict of interests with the agencies under the jurisdiction of the Intelligence committee and are presumably not at risk of compromise by foreign or malign interests.”