The Patriot Post® · A Criminal Investigation of Liz Cheney?
Pssst … here’s what I need you to say.
It didn’t go down quite like that, of course, but it seems clear that Liz Cheney will need to explain her interactions with one of the key witnesses during her tenure on Nancy Pelosi’s since-disbanded Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
According to a new 127-page interim report released by the House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Pelosi’s rigged committee, on which the Trump-hating Cheney served as vice chairman, was “improperly constituted and lacked authority,” and “neglected or withheld evidence from its Final Report and deleted voluminous records it should have preserved.”
Cheney’s actions, though, warrant particular attention. According to the subcommittee’s chairman, Georgia Republican Barry Loudermilk, “Cheney colluded with ‘star witness’ Cassidy Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge.” For this, Loudermilk believes Cheney should be investigated for “criminal witness tampering.” According to Loudermilk:
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. This secret communication with a witness is improper and likely violates 18 U.S.C. 1512. Such action is outside the due functioning of the legislative process and therefore not protected by the Speech and Debate clause.
As The Federalist reports, “The pair communicated to circumvent Hutchinson’s own attorney, Stefan Passantino, whom the Jan. 6 Committee ultimately targeted with an operation intended to strip him of his law license. Passantino was cleared of any misconduct following multiple investigations from ethics watchdogs.”
Cheney was quick to respond to Loudermilk’s charges … with an ad hominem attack on Trump:
January 6th showed Donald Trump for who is [sic] 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. The January 6th Committee’s hearings and report featured scores of republican [sic] 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. The Department of Justice conducted its own independent investigation and reached the same fundamental conclusions.
The 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,” Cheney concluded her rant. “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.”
That’s the entirety of Cheney’s response. But notice what’s missing: Cheney didn’t even mention the very serious charge that’s at the center of the subcommittee’s report — namely, that she tampered with a witness.
Perhaps Joe Biden will issue her a pardon.
Contrary to the final report issued by Pelosi’s J6 Committee, the key findings of Loudermilk’s subcommittee include the following:
President Trump did not attack his Secret Service Detail at any time on January 6, nor did he have intelligence indicating violence on the morning of January 6.
Hutchinson falsely claimed to have drafted a handwritten note for Trump on January 6.
Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller dismissed Trump’s order prior to January 6 to use “any and all” military assets to keep the demonstrations safe, and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy intentionally delayed the DC National Guard’s response to the Capitol on January 6.
The Department of Defense Inspector General published a flawed report, failed to respond to the subcommittee’s requests, and obstructed its investigation.
Perhaps even more interesting is the subcommittee’s finding that the FBI and the Capitol Police failed to investigate the individuals responsible for erecting that infamous fake gallows on the Capitol grounds on January 6. Why on earth not? They investigated everything else related to the events of January 6. Indeed, the gallows builders are clearly visible in photos taken that day, and video shows that one of the builders left the construction site to buy coffee at 6:45 a.m. from a coffee shop right across the street from the FBI building at 601 4th Street NW.
Furthermore, the subcommittee “conducted an extensive review of the investigation into the two pipe bombs on January 5 and 6, and that report is set to be released within the next few days.” So stay tuned.
There’s a lot to digest in Loudermilk’s report, and it comes at a frenzied time in the nation’s capital. There are many things in dire need of fixing by the incoming Trump administration, and folks might reasonably wonder why House Republicans are spending their time on that dark day nearly four years ago.
Here’s why: So far, the vast majority of the American people have heard only one side of the story — the side presented by Nancy Pelosi’s rigged J6 Committee. The events of that day are seen by many Americans as a black mark on our nation’s history, and a black mark that’s affixed squarely on Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. Indeed, Trump has declared that he’ll pardon the J6 prisoners within the first hour after being sworn in on January 20. But unless the whole truth comes out about the events of that day, then today’s history — Pelosi’s history — will be the permanent history.
But if, for example, Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, can find evidence somewhere within the bowels of the FBI that the bureau’s 26 informants did more than merely observe what happened in and around the Capitol, or that an FBI resource erected that iconic hangman’s scaffold, or that the FBI knows more about the planter of those two pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC headquarters just before January 6, then the American people deserve to know about it.
That’s why Republicans need to look back at January 6 — to make sure that the whole truth is told, not just the truth of Nancy Pelosi and Liz Cheney.