The House Oversight Subcommittee, headed by Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), released a 127-page Interim Report detailing a swath of shady conduct related to the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol building and the subsequent Democratic Select Committee that was ostensibly aimed at getting to the bottom of what happened on that day.
Of particular interest is the report’s findings about the conduct of former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who served on the Committee and used her position to attack President-elect Donald Trump. The report suggests that she exercised undue influence over the Committee’s proceedings to target the president-elect while working to promote the narrative that he incited the violence on January 6.
The report concludes by recommending an FBI investigation into Cheney’s behavior.
The Oversight Subcommittee referred to Cheney’s public statements as evidence that her only focus during her stint on the Select Committee was Trump and not the systemic security failures that occurred on January 6.
“Representative Cheney mentions President Trump eighteen separate times in her four-page Forward to the Select Committee’s Final Report—including her statements that ‘no man’ who behaved as President Trump ‘can ever serve in any position of authority in our nation again,’” the report noted.
The authors pointed out that Cheney failed “to mention any of the tangible failures of that day” and “spoke of law enforcement only twice, and never mentioned the National Guard or the multi-agency intelligence failures.”
One staffer told investigators that when the J6 Committee “became a Cheney 2024 campaign, many of us became discouraged.”
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“Representative Cheney’s influence on the Select Committee’s work and the conclusions it drew cannot be overstated. Before the Select Committee published its final report, fifteen current and former staffers approached the Washington Post to express deep frustration with Representative Cheney’s heavy-handed oversight of the Select Committee’s work. The article states that ‘committee staff members were floored’ when told that the final report ‘would focus almost entirely on Trump.’”
The Subcommittee brought up Cheney’s alleged effort to shape former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony before the Select Committee. The report alleges that Cheney “communicated directly with Cassidy Hutchinson without her attorney’s knowledge, despite Cheney knowing it was unethical.”
The report notes that Hutchinson acknowledged receiving “contact information for multiple attorneys at various firms” from the former lawmaker.
“It is unusual—and potentially unethical—for a Member of Congress conducting an investigation to contact a witness if the Member knows that the individual is represented by legal counsel. Representative Cheney is an attorney, and an attorney who circumvents an individual’s legal representation would violate well-established attorney ethics standards.”
The Subcommittee also found evidence of frequent communications between Hutchinson and Cheney without her lawyer’s knowledge. It alleged that Cheney helped Hutchinson find new legal representation and compromised her testimony. However, the former lawmaker, in her book, made it appear as if she “passively waited for Hutchinson to fire her attorney and find new counsel on her own,” according to the report.
Cheney allegedly played an instrumental role in shaping Hutchinson’s testimony. “Her first two interviews, though consistent with one another, were significantly different than the narrative she told in her four subsequent interviews and live testimony,” the report stated, also stating that the former lawmaker’s “decision to rush Hutchinson’s testimony caused ‘unforced errors’ and did not afford staff the ‘opportunity to thoroughly vet the line of questioning.’”
“Hutchinson testified to a series of specific, outrageous claims about President Trump on January 6, 2021. Nearly all her allegations involve incidents to which she was not an eyewitness, and the parties she credited for relaying those alleged events to her categorically denied her claims.”
In one instance, Hutchinson made the outlandish claim that Trump had tried to lunge past Secret Service agents and grab the steering will as he was being transported from the Capitol building in a limousine.
The Oversight subcommittee suggested that “numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney”. It recommended that “these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation” because the former lawmaker “tampered with at least one witness.”
The report argues that the FBI should investigate Cheney for violating laws against “procuring another person to commit perjury.”
Of course, it is doubtful that Cheney will face any kind of accountability for her alleged actions. But the report clearly demonstrates what many already knew: Cheney saw the Select Committee as an opportunity to boost her popularity by positioning herself as the ultimate anti-Trump figure.
Cheney made the mistake of basing her entire political platform on going after the president-elect, an issue that contributed to her ignominious defeat in the 2022 midterm primaries.
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