FBI should probe 'potential' Liz Cheney 'witness tampering' in Jan 6 matter, House Republicans say
Former Rep. Liz Cheney is facing calls from GOP legislators that the FBI investigate her for "potential criminal witness tampering" related to her former role on the Jan. 6 House Select Committee, a report released Tuesday by the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight chairman, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., details.
"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. 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," the report, which was provided to Fox Digital, found.
The Jan. 6 committee was founded in July 2021 to investigate the breach of the U.S. Capitol earlier that year by supporters of Trump ahead of President Biden officially taking office on Jan. 20. The Jan. 6 committee’s investigation was carried out when Democrats held control of the House.
The committee concluded its 18-month investigation last year, when Republicans regained control of the House and sent referrals to the Justice Department recommending Trump be criminally prosecuted for his involvement in the lead-up to supporters breaching the Capitol. The committee was composed of seven Democrats and two Republican lawmakers, Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom are no longer in office.
Loudermilk's subcommittee was tapped to investigate the J6 committee and its findings in January 2023.
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The House Republicans' report Tuesday specifically took issue with Cheney’s alleged "direct intervention" with Hutchinson, who was considered the star witness of the investigation, including allegedly encouraging Hutchinson to hire "Select Committee-friendly attorneys to represent her," as opposed to keeping her original legal representation.
Hutchinson, who worked as an aide to Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, had claimed before the select committee that on Jan. 6, 2021, she was told Trump allegedly became "irate" and attempted to join supporters at the Capitol ahead of them breaching the government building. The incident reportedly unfolded after Trump delivered a speech at the Ellipse, which is a park just south of the White House fence.
Hutchinson alleged she was told Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel of a Secret Service SUV before the driver reportedly told Trump to remove his hand and that they were headed to the White House, not the Capitol. Hutchinson’s account was directly refuted by Anthony Ornato, who served as White House deputy chief of staff for operations under Trump after decades in the Secret Service.
Less than two weeks after firing her original attorney, and hiring "the attorneys Representative Cheney suggested – Hutchinson sat for her fourth transcribed interview with the Select Committee under unusual circumstances," the report found.
"Prior to this interview, nearly every interview the Select Committee conducted included approximately a dozen people – including committee staff members, committee counsel, often a Member of the Select Committee, the interviewee, and the interviewee’s legal representation. Most of the interviews were done in large conference rooms or over zoom, allowing space for all participants. Hutchinson’s fourth transcribed interview, however, was vastly different. It consisted of only four people: Representative Cheney, one attorney from the Select Committee, Hutchinson, and Hutchinson’s new counsel. Additionally, instead of the Select Committee conducting the interview in a conference room or virtually, Representative Cheney used her private hideaway inside of the United States Capitol Building," the report states.
The House Republican report continued that Hutchinson’s testimony to the Jan. 6 committee was crucial, arguing "it is unlikely the Select Committee could make its assertions about President Trump’s mood, attitude, and alleged culpability in the events of January 6" without her comments.
"Hutchinson is mentioned by name in the Select Committee’s Final Report no fewer than 185 times. Inexplicably, the Select Committee discredited the multitude of legitimate witnesses who, under oath, repeatedly refuted Hutchinson’s testimony. These legitimate witnesses include senior government officials and federal agents."
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Cheney, in comments provided to Fox News Digital on Tuesday afternoon, defended her former committee's investigation, while arguing Loudermilk's report "intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence."
"January 6th showed Donald Trump for who [he] really is – a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave," Cheney said to Fox News Digital.
"The January 6th Committee’s hearings and report featured scores of Republican witnesses, including many of the most senior officials from Trump’s own White House, campaign and Administration. All of this testimony was painstakingly set out in thousands of pages of transcripts, made public along with a highly detailed and meticulously sourced 800 page report. Now, Chairman Loudermilk’s 'Interim Report' intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did. Their allegations do not reflect a review of the actual evidence, and are a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth. No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously."
The Democratic former chair of the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, also slammed Loudermilk's report in a comment to Fox News Digital on Tuesday.
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"Representative Loudermilk has failed to discredit the work of the January 6th Select Committee. His so-called 'report' is filled with baseless, conclusory allegations rather than facts. That’s because there’s no escaping the reality that Donald Trump bears the responsibility for the deadly January 6th attack no matter how much Mr. Loudermilk would love to rewrite history for his political purposes," he said.
The president-elect railed in an interview on NBC earlier this month that Cheney, Thompson and others on the J6 committee "deleted and destroyed" evidence related to the investigation and "should go to jail."
"Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps," he said in the interview. "They deleted and destroyed all evidence."
"And Cheney was behind it. And so was Bennie Thompson and everybody on that committee," he continued. "For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail."
Trump's claims of the committee allegedly "deleting" evidence was supported by a previous report released by Loudermilk earlier this year claiming the select committee "deleted" records and hired "Hollywood producers" to promote a political narrative while investigating Jan. 6.
The report released Tuesday found that the Jan. 6 committee failed to archive "as many as 900 interview summaries or transcripts," despite a process for committee chairs to properly archive data, including interviews.
"As part of its investigation, the Subcommittee learned that the Select Committee failed to archive or provide the Subcommittee with any of its video recordings of witness interviews, as many as 900 interview summaries or transcripts, more than one terabyte of digital data. Concerningly, of the documents that were archived, the Select Committee delivered more than 100 encrypted, password protected documents and never provided the passwords. It is unclear why the Select Committee chose only those documents to be shielded by password," the report found.
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The Jan. 6 committee, the report found, failed to archive more than "one terabyte of digital data" after Thompson reported archiving more than four terabytes of data in a July 2022 letter. The subcommittee ultimately received less than three terabytes of digital data.
"One terabyte of data is equivalent to 6.5 million document pages such as PDFs or office files, 500 hours of high definition video, or 250,000 photos," the report noted.
Thompson previously denied the claims of deleting evidence in a July 2023 letter to Loudermilk, detailing that the committee had called on the federal government regarding the "proper archiving of such sensitive material to protect witnesses’ safety, national security, and to safeguard law enforcement operations."
Thompson provided three "facts" in response to the report Tuesday in comment to Fox Digital.
"Here are the facts: (1) The Select Committee was properly constituted, as every court that heard challenges found. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro would not have gone to prison for contempt of Congress had there been a legitimate issue. Not even the Republican-controlled Supreme Court stayed their sentences, despite Mr. Loudermilk’s entreaties. (2) The Select Committee followed all House Rules, and it did not withhold or destroy any record that was required to be archived. Moreover, every record the Select Committee had was turned over to the Department of Justice, which was in turn provided to the former President’s defense team through the discovery process during his criminal proceedings. Most of those records are publicly available through the Government Publishing Office’s online repository," he said.
"(3) The Members of the Select Committee and the witnesses who came before us – who were mainly Republicans from the Trump administration – acted honorably and out of patriotic duty to the Constitution. The Select Committee’s Final Report was not based on any single witness’s testimony, and it painted a damning picture of the former President’s dereliction of duty. That work stands on its own."
Thompson added that Loudermilk failed to "to find a single valid problem with the Select Committee’s work," that reflects what he said is an "inescapable conclusion."
"Donald Trump orchestrated a multi-part conspiracy that attempted to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 Presidential election by summoning a mob to Washington to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in American history," he said.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tapped Loudermilk to investigate both the Jan. 6 incident itself and the Jan. 6 House Select Committee’s report on the Capitol breach in January 2023.
"Over the past twenty-four months of this investigation, my subcommittee staff have faced incredible obstacles in pursuit of the truth; missing and deleted documents, hidden evidence, unaccounted for video footage, and uncooperative bureaucrats. At one point, the work of the subcommittee was completely halted due to the removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker, and subsequently faced internal efforts to derail the investigation. However, our team persevered through the delays; and, when Mike Johnson took the gavel as Speaker of the House, he allocated even more resources to our investigation and committed to more transparency for the American people," Loudermilk wrote in a letter to colleagues accompanying the report.
