President Trump’s record-breaking turnover in his Cabinet is continuing, as Energy Secretary Rick Perry officially tendered his resignation from his White House post.
Trump confirmed Perry’s exit while in Texas.
“We already have his replacement,” Trump told reporters. “Rick has done a fantastic job. But it was time.“
Perry’s exit comes after months of speculation that the energy secretary was on his way out, which were renewed in the wake of the burgeoning Ukraine scandal.
The energy secretary had previously denied the rumors, though, telling reporters October 7, “I’m here. I’m serving.” “They’ve been writing the story that I was leaving the Department of Energy for at least nine months now,” Perry said. “One of these days they’ll probably get it right. But it’s not today. It’s not tomorrow. It’s not next month.”
Unlike so many other members of Trump’s cabinet, Perry largely managed to avoid scandal during his tenure at the Department of Energy, which began soon after Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
Despite famously having called for the agency to be eliminated—and forgetting its name—as a presidential primary candidate, the energy secretary even oversaw the agency’s expansion, with the New York Times noting that the agency’s budget was expanded by nearly 25% while Perry was in office.
Yet Perry has more recently gotten wrapped up in the Trumpworld drama, becoming one of the White House officials to be embroiled in the ongoing Ukraine saga.
The cabinet secretary, along with Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, was reportedly one of the “three amigos” who became responsible for the administration’s agenda in Ukraine, and Perry’s trip to Ukraine for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration was cited in the whistle-blower report.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, Perry said that he had reached out to Rudy Giuliani about Ukraine at Trump’s request.
“As I recall the conversation, [Giuliani] said, ‘Look, the president is really concerned that there are people in Ukraine that tried to beat him during this presidential election,’” Perry told the Journal. “ ‘He thinks they’re corrupt and . . . that there are still people over there engaged that are absolutely corrupt.’” “I don’t know whether that was crap or what,” Perry added about Giuliani’s claims.
Trump has also personally dragged Perry into the Ukraine mess, claiming to House Republicans that he had made his infamous July 25 phone call with Zelensky at Perry’s request.
Perry’s role in the Ukraine saga and resulting impeachment inquiry likely won’t end with his resignation.
The secretary faces a Friday deadline to comply with a House subpoena for documents related to Ukraine, and Democratic lawmakers are particularly interested in having Perry testify about his role in the administration’s Ukrainian campaign, particularly in the wake of his resignation.
While the soon-to-be private citizen has so far demurred about whether he’ll participate in the probe, saying he would follow the direction of the Energy Department and White House counsel, sources cited by Politico say Perry “may cooperate as a way to salvage his reputation before he departs.”
“For the most part, he has a lot to lose by getting embroiled in this and he’s not going to want to hide things,” a source in the energy industry close to the administration told Politico Thursday. “He’s going to want to extract himself as cleanly as he can from this snare.”