Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, suggests in a new report that former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney should be investigated for alleged criminal witness tampering, saying she played an “integral role” in shaping key witness testimony before January. 6 commission investigating the attack on the US Capitol.
President-elect Donald Trump posted on her social media platform early Wednesday morning: “Liz Cheney may be in trouble based on evidence obtained by subcommittee, says: ‘Liz Cheney likely broke numerous federal laws, and these violations should be investigated’ by the FBI.”
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at Trump Tower on May 31, 2024 in New York.
Julia Nikhinson/AP
Earlier this month, Trump, speaking about members of the January 6 committee, he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” that, “for what they did, they should actually go to prison”.
The The House GOP report was released Tuesday It represents not only the latest effort by House Republicans to discredit the Jan. 6 committee, but also a possible preview of its oversight efforts in the next session of Congress, which begins in January.
Liz Cheney listens as the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing in Washington, June 28, 2022.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Cheney’s name appears more than 120 times in the report, excluding the index, going line by line to blast his involvement as vice chairman of the January 6 committee.
“Without authority and contrary to the Rules of the House — the role of the ranking member, Congress itself must correct its earlier mistakes and now declare this nomination of Representative Cheney invalid,” the report said.
Representative Barry Loudermilk leaves the House Republican Caucus meeting at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on May 23, 2023.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
The report says that as Cheney became involved in the investigation, he joined former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson on testimony describing then-President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The report says Cheney not only “backchanneled” Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House aide and host of ABC’s “The View,” to get Hutchinson to change her narrative, but also communicated with her “directly for days.” After that, the report says Cheney also convinced Hutchinson to fire his lawyer, Stefan Passantino.
“According to encrypted text messages between Hutchinson and Farah Griffin on the ‘Signal’ messaging app obtained by the subcommittee, Cheney agreed to communicate with Farah Griffin with Hutchinson,” the subcommittee said.
“It is unusual — and potentially unethical — for a member of Congress conducting an investigation to contact a witness if they know the individual is being represented by an attorney,” the report said. “This appears to be what Rep. Cheney did at this point, and within days of these secret conversations, Hutchinson would retract his previous testimony and present his most outlandish claims.”
“Other information disclosed in these phone calls will never be known, but what is known is that Rep. Cheney consciously tried to minimize his contact with Hutchinson in his book, and the most likely reason for trying to bury that information would be if Rep. Cheney knew it was inappropriate and unethical to communicate with Hutchinson in his without counsel,” the report says.
“It should be noted that Representative Cheney likely knew that his communications without the knowledge of Hutchinson’s attorney at the time were illegal and unethical,” the report said. Farah Griffin expressed as much…in her…message to Hutchinson…when she wrote that Rep. Cheney’s “only concern” was that while Hutchinson was being represented by counsel, “he (Cheney) can’t really ethically. talk to you ( Hutchinson) without him (Passantino).” Despite Rep. Cheney’s initial misgivings, the Subcommittee found evidence of frequent and direct conversations between Hutchinson and Rep. Cheney without Passantino’s knowledge, as well as through their intermediary, Farah Griffin.
Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, testifies during the sixth hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the US Capitol on June 28, 2022 in Washington. , DC.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images
Cheney responded in a statement, insisting that the testimony had been “painstaking,” presented in thousands of pages of transcripts, made public along with “a very detailed and detailed 800-page report.”
“President Loudermilk’s ‘Interim Report’ deliberately ignores the truth and overwhelming evidence from the Select Committee, and instead manufactures lies and defamatory allegations to cover up what Donald Trump did,” Cheney wrote. “Their allegations do not reflect a genuine review of the evidence, and are a malicious and cowardly attack on the truth.”
Cheney also did not retract his role and the commission’s findings.
“On January 6th he showed who Donald Trump really is: a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks against our Capitol and law enforcement officers to continue while he watched television and refused for hours to order his supporters to stand back and leave,” he said. . “The January 6 Committee hearings and report featured numerous Republican witnesses, including many senior Trump White House, campaign and Administration officials.”
Farah Griffin also disputed the GOP report’s findings.
“This report is full of inaccuracies and innuendo,” he said in a statement. “The report falsely claims – and without any evidence – that I acted as an intermediary between Cassidy Hutchinson and Liz Cheney for ‘months’. That is not true, and these messages show the full extent of my involvement. Furthermore, these messages were not . “I did not “get” the Commission – I have asked the Commission and I voluntarily handed over to the Commission the oversight of the Congress, that was the investigation of January 6.”
Trump has denied that he did it around January 6.
