US congressman Scott Perry said his phone was seized by the FBI two days after a team of law enforcement officials raided former president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Mr Perry, a Republican ally of Mr Trump, has been investigated and has given evidence in the continuing probe into the January 6 storming of the US Capitol last year, during which five people died.
Three agents seized his phone while he was travelling with his family, said an “outraged” Mr Perry. However, he did not reveal why the device was confiscated.
A Justice Department representative declined to comment.
“They made no attempt to contact my lawyer, who would have made arrangements for them to have my phone, if that was their wish,” Mr Perry said, according to a Fox News report.
“My phone contains info about my legislative and political activities, and personal/private discussions with my wife, family, constituents and friends. None of this is the government's business,” he said.
Mr Perry, who helped to spread the former president's electoral fraud claims, was in contact with the Trump White House in the weeks before the assault on the Capitol.
During a congressional hearing in June, politicians heard evidence that the politician sought a pardon from Mr Trump. Mr Perry has denied seeking a pardon.
However, he acknowledged introducing Mr Trump to Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department lawyer and Trump loyalist.
Mr Clark wanted Jeffrey Rosen, acting attorney general at the time, to send a letter to the state of Georgia, falsely claiming the department had uncovered voter fraud.
When that failed, Mr Clark sought to have Mr Trump install him as acting attorney general.
In June, federal agents seized Mr Clark's electronic devices from his suburban Virginia home.
The news of Mr Perry’s claimed encounter with the FBI comes at a time when Mr Trump is dealing with the fallout from the bureau’s raid on his oceanside Florida mansion, reportedly to remove 15 boxes of documents he took from the White House, in breach of US law, which says presidential records belong to the public.
Mr Trump tried to paint the search as a politically motivated move by President Joe Biden's administration.
The former president is playing a key role in Republican primaries to pick candidates for the November midterm elections that will determine control of the US Congress.
“They are trying to stop the Republican Party and me once more,” Mr Trump said in a fundraising email on Tuesday. “The lawlessness, political persecution and witch hunt must be exposed and stopped.”
Mr Trump set up his Save America political action committee days after losing the 2020 election to Mr Biden. It has more than $100 million in the bank, a formidable war chest.
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
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