House Republicans urge FBI to investigate potential witness tampering by Liz Cheney in the Jan 6 matter.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., has released a report accusing former Rep. Liz Cheney of "potential criminal witness tampering" related to her role on the Jan. 6 House Select Committee.

According to the report obtained by Fox Digital, Liz Cheney, the former Vice Chair of the January 6 Select Committee, likely broke numerous federal laws by tampering with at least one witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, and secretly communicating with Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge.

The Jan. 6 committee was established in July 2021 to examine the U.S. Capitol breach by Trump supporters in January 2021, before President Biden's inauguration on January 20. The committee's investigation was conducted while Democrats held a majority in the House.

The committee, consisting of seven Democrats and two Republican lawmakers, concluded its 18-month investigation last year and recommended that Trump be criminally prosecuted for his role in the lead-up to supporters breaching the Capitol. However, both Cheney and Kinzinger, the Republican members, are no longer in office.

In January 2023, Loudermilk's subcommittee was tasked with examining the J6 committee and its conclusions.

The House Republicans' report on Tuesday criticized Cheney for allegedly interfering with Hutchinson's testimony in the investigation, including encouraging her to hire attorneys who were friendly to the Select Committee, rather than keeping her original legal representation.

Hutchinson, who previously worked as an aide to Trump's White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, stated before the select committee that on January 6, 2021, she was informed that Trump was "enraged" and attempted to join his supporters at the Capitol before they breached the government building. The incident occurred after Trump delivered a speech at the Ellipse, a park located just south of the White House fence.

According to Hutchinson, she was informed that Trump tried to seize the steering wheel of a Secret Service SUV before the driver instructed him to remove his hand, and they were en route to the White House, not the Capitol. However, Ornato, who served as White House deputy chief of staff for operations under Trump after a long career in the Secret Service, directly contradicted Hutchinson's account.

The report found that, just over two weeks after dismissing her first lawyer and hiring the ones recommended by Representative Cheney, Hutchinson underwent her fourth transcribed interview with the Select Committee under unusual conditions.

The Select Committee typically conducted interviews with approximately a dozen participants, including committee staff members, counsel, a committee member, the interviewee, and their legal representation. Most interviews took place in large conference rooms or over Zoom, providing ample space for all participants. However, Hutchinson's fourth transcribed interview was significantly different. It involved only four people: Representative Cheney, one attorney from the Select Committee, Hutchinson, and Hutchinson's new counsel. Unlike previous interviews, which were conducted in conference rooms or virtually, Representative Cheney chose to conduct the interview in her private hideaway inside the United States Capitol Building.

The report from the House Republican committee stated that Hutchinson's testimony to the January 6 committee was vital, asserting that it is unlikely the Select Committee could make its claims about President Trump's state of mind, attitude, and alleged responsibility for the January 6 events without her input.

"The Select Committee's Final Report mentions Hutchinson's name at least 185 times. Despite the testimony of numerous legitimate witnesses, who were under oath and repeatedly refuted Hutchinson's testimony, the Select Committee discredited them. These witnesses were senior government officials and federal agents."

Cheney defended her former committee's investigation and accused Loudermilk of intentionally disregarding the truth and the Select Committee's evidence in a comment provided to Planet Chronicle Digital on Tuesday afternoon.

Cheney stated on Planet Chronicle Digital that January 6th revealed Donald Trump's true character as a cruel and vindictive individual who permitted violent attacks on our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched TV and refused to instruct his supporters to stop for several hours.

"The January 6th Committee's hearings and report included numerous Republican witnesses, including many high-ranking officials from Trump's White House, campaign, and Administration. The testimony was meticulously documented in thousands of pages of transcripts, which were made public alongside an 800-page report. However, Chairman Loudermilk's "Interim Report" ignores the truth and the Select Committee's substantial evidence, fabricating false accusations and lies in an attempt to cover up what Trump did. Their allegations do not reflect a thorough examination of the evidence and are a malicious and cowardly attack on the truth. No respectable lawyer, legislator, or judge would take this seriously."

On Tuesday, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the former Democratic chair of the committee, criticized Loudermilk's report in a comment to Planet Chronicle Digital.

"Despite his efforts, Representative Loudermilk has been unable to undermine the work of the January 6th Select Committee. His 'report' is filled with unfounded, conclusive accusations rather than facts. This is because it is impossible to change the reality that Donald Trump is responsible for the deadly January 6th attack, regardless of Mr. Loudermilk's political motivations," he stated.

In an interview on NBC, the president-elect accused Cheney, Thompson, and others on the J6 committee of deleting and destroying evidence related to the investigation and urged them to be held accountable.

"In the interview, he stated that Cheney, Thompson, and the un-select committee members engaged in inexcusable behavior, including deleting and destroying all evidence."

"Cheney, Bennie Thompson, and the entire committee were involved in it," he stated. "In my opinion, they should be imprisoned for their actions."

Trump's accusations of the committee supposedly "deleting" evidence were backed by a report from Loudermilk earlier this year, which stated that the select committee "deleted" records and employed "Hollywood producers" to promote a political narrative while probing the January 6th incident.

Despite a process for committee chairs to properly archive data, including interviews, the Jan. 6 committee failed to archive "as many as 900 interview summaries or transcripts" that were supposed to be stored.

The Subcommittee discovered that the Select Committee did not provide any video recordings of witness interviews, including 900 interview summaries or transcripts, totaling over one terabyte of digital data. Additionally, the Select Committee delivered over 100 encrypted, password-protected documents but never shared the passwords. The reason for this is unclear.

The Jan. 6 committee did not archive more than one terabyte of digital data, despite Thompson's claim in a July 2022 letter that he had archived over four terabytes. In the end, the subcommittee received less than three terabytes of digital data.

The report stated that 1 terabyte of data is equivalent to 6.5 million document pages, 500 hours of high definition video, or 250,000 photos.

In a July 2023 letter to Loudermilk, Thompson denied the allegations of evidence deletion, stating that the committee had contacted the federal government about the "appropriate preservation of sensitive information to ensure the safety of witnesses, national security, and to maintain the integrity of law enforcement operations."

In a comment to Fox Digital on Tuesday, Thompson presented three "facts" in response to the report.

The Select Committee was properly constituted and 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.

"The Select Committee and the witnesses who testified before them, who were mostly Republicans from the Trump administration, acted with integrity and a sense of duty to the Constitution. Despite being based on the testimony of multiple witnesses, the committee's final report portrayed a damning picture of the former president's neglect of his responsibilities. This report stands on its own."

Thompson stated that Loudermilk was unable to identify any issues with the Select Committee's work, which he considered an inevitable conclusion.

According to him, Donald Trump coordinated a complex plot to challenge the valid election results of 2020 by inciting a crowd to disrupt the peaceful transition of power, a first in American history.

In January 2023, the former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appointed Loudermilk to investigate both the January 6 incident and the report of the January 6 House Select Committee on the Capitol breach.

Over the past twenty-four months, my subcommittee staff have encountered numerous obstacles in their pursuit of the truth, including missing and deleted documents, hidden evidence, unaccounted for video footage, and uncooperative bureaucrats. At one point, the work of the subcommittee was 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.