Perry, a former Texas governor and two-time Republican presidential candidate, has kept an unusually low profile for a member of Trump's Cabinet, and he has avoided scandals that have tarred or forced out several other Cabinet secretaries. He recently got embroiled in the Ukraine scandal, though there is no indication he played any role in the effort to press Kyiv to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. Earlier Thursday, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) dinged Perry for recently launching an artificial intelligence office at the Energy Department that could potentially benefit his wife, Anita.