How Rick Perry Became A Key Figure In The Trump Impeachment Probe

Among the key figures embroiled in the impeachment inquiry into President Trump is Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who announced last week that he will be resigning later this year.

It was Perry who led the U.S. delegation to Ukraine when newly elected President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was inaugurated back in May. And it was Perry who urged Trump to make that now-infamous July phone call to Zelenskiy — a phone call that's at the heart of the inquiry.

In that call, Trump asked the Ukrainians to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, his potential rival in the 2020 presidential campaign. The call triggered the whistleblower complaint from an intelligence officer and led to allegations that Trump abused his power for personal political gain.

So how did Perry, who just a few years ago was attempting to cha-cha his way through Dancing With the Stars, become a major figure in the impeachment probe?

Perry's roots go back to tiny Paint Creek, Texas, in rural Haskell County.

"They used to call him 'the rascal from Haskell,' " says Scott Braddock, who's editor of the Texas political newsletter Quorum Report and has covered Perry for many years. "He grew up not exactly dirt poor but not far from it."

The son of tenant farmers, Perry would become a master politician, an expert at cultivating relationships.

After winning a seat in the Texas House of Representatives, Perry went on to be elected state agriculture commissioner and lieutenant governor. He assumed the Texas governorship midway through George W. Bush's second term as governor, when Bush won the presidency. Perry was then elected governor three times, serving for 14 years and making him the longest-serving governor in Texas history.

"He took being a wheeler-dealer basically to the level of an art form," Braddock says. "Perry was somebody who would always figure out the way to get what he wanted."