House Republicans have recommended a criminal probe into former Rep. Liz Cheney for witness tampering, echoing President-elect Trump's calls for Cheney to face prison for her conduct as a leading member of the January 6th committee.
Cheney guided the January 6th committee's 18-month investigation, which concluded that Trump should face criminal consequences for inciting an "insurrection" at the U.S. Capitol.
As vice chair of the January 6th committee, Cheney communicated with star witness Cassidy Hutchinson without her lawyer's knowledge. Hutchinson would go on to share dramatic public testimony that was later discredited by other witnesses.
In their interim report Tuesday, Republicans on the Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight accused the January 6 committee of cherry-picking evidence favorable to its narrative and suppressing other data, including a terabyte of digital data, all video recordings of witness interviews, and hundreds of transcripts. The January 6th committee also archived 100 password-protected documents but did not provide the passwords.
Much of the interim report focuses on Cheney as the driving force behind the committee's investigation and its narrow focus on Trump, to the exclusion of other factors like security and intelligence failures.
The report accuses Cheney of coaching star witness Cassidy Hutchinson, who initially spoke with Cheney through an intermediary, former Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin, before Hutchinson contacted Cheney directly. Hutchinson and Cheney communicated over Signal, an encrypted chat app, without Hutchinson's lawyer knowing.
Hutchinson sat for several interviews, which were initially uneventful. Her accounts changed, becoming more sensational as Cheney coached her, the GOP's report alleged.
Cheney conducted an "unusual" interview with Hutchinson in Cheney's "private hideaway" inside the Capitol, where just four people were present: Cheney, an attorney for the J6 committee, Hutchinson, and her lawyer. The GOP report also notes that Hutchinson, in her book, credited Cheney with finding her a new attorney, something Cheney omitted in her own memoir.
Hutchinson would go on to share widely publicized testimony in June 2022, in which she notoriously claimed that Trump lunged at the steering wheel of his car - an outlandish charge that was discredited by other witnesses including the driver.
Shortly after Hutchinson's public testimony, Cheney ironically warned that "anybody attempting to influence witness testimony" could face prosecution as she accused Trump of trying to influence the committee's investigation.
But the Republicans' report charged Cheney with doing just that, also adding that she may be guilty of procuring Hutchinson to commit perjury.
"Based on the evidence obtained by this Subcommittee, numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, the former Vice Chair of the January 6 Select Committee, and these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation," the report said.
"Evidence uncovered by the Subcommittee revealed that former Congresswoman Liz Cheney tampered with at least one witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, by secretly communicating with Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge."
Cheney, who lost her congressional seat to backlash over her anti-Trump politics, dismissed the GOP's report as a "malicious and cowardly assault on the truth."
Trump, in a recent interview, suggested Cheney and others on the committee "should go to jail" for deleting evidence that contradicted their narrative.