Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) ripped President-elect Donald Trump as a “cruel and vindictive man” and said his Republican allies were waging a “malicious and cowardly” attack against the truth to cover up his role in the Capitol insurrection.
The former lawmaker’s comments came after a key Republican released a report on Tuesday that accused Cheney of misconduct for her role on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol. Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), the chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, claimed Cheney may have tampered with a witness and encouraged them to commit perjury.
The report recommended Cheney face a criminal investigation, alleging the former lawmaker had improperly interfered with damning testimony provided by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
Cheney said those claims were lies.
“Jan. 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,” Cheney said in a statement. “…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.”
“…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.”
Cheney served as vice chair of the select committee, one of just two Republicans on the panel. The bipartisan group released a lengthy report on the matter at the end of 2022, which blamed Trump for inciting the insurrection as part of a broad attack to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential race he lost to Joe Biden.
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Trump has repeatedly called for Cheney to be jailed for her work on the House panel as the president-elect eyes retribution against those he’s labeled his political enemies. He recently claimed, without evidence, that she had committed a “major crime,” calling the group of lawmakers on the committee “political thugs.”
Cheney fired back at the time, calling Trump’s comments yet another effort to undermine “the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”
The Biden White House has reportedly been weighing the idea of preemptive pardons for some in Trump’s sights, including Cheney, California Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D), special counsel Jack Smith, and Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
