WASHINGTON — A House Republican-led panel on Tuesday called for a federal criminal investigation of former Rep. Liz Cheney for possible “criminal witness tampering” with a star witness while serving as vice chairman of the since-disbanded House select committee that investigated the 2021 Capitol riot.

Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Cassidy Hutchinson, a first-term White House aide to then-President Donald Trump, communicated via the encrypted Signal app before her explosive and later largely debunked public testimony in June 2022, according to documents previously released by House Republicans.

Citing those communications, the Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight on Tuesday issued an interim report calling for the Justice Department to investigate Cheney as Trump prepares to retake the White House.

“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 from chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) says.

“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.”

Records made public in October by the same committee revealed that Cheney and Hutchinson used the Signal app to swap messages to arrange calls over the app, which is used by Washington journalists and politicians for its end-to-end encryption, which inhibits interception by authorities.

The content of the voice calls is unknown, but one message showed Hutchinson providing Cheney with a screenshot of her then-attorney Stefan Passantino suggesting she not cooperate with the panel that investigated Trump’s role in the mob attack by his supporters challenging the 2020 election results.

Hutchinson had been in the midst of six transcribed interviews with the select committee and her communication with Cheney on June 6, 2022, preceded her dramatic public testimony 22 days later.

Much of what Hutchinson testified publicly later was called into question by other witnesses — most notably her testimony that she was told that Trump was so enraged when Secret Service agents refused to take his motorcade to the Capitol on the day of the attack that he “lunged” for the steering wheel.

Photos showed that Hutchinson had misidentified the vehicle where the alleged encounter took place and the driver later denied it was true.

“Cassidy Hutchinson’s most outrageous claims lacked any evidence, and the Select Committee had knowledge that her claims were false when they publicly promoted her,” Loudermilk said in a press release.

“President Trump did not attack his Secret Service Detail at any time on January 6. President Trump did not have intelligence indicating violence on the morning of January 6. Cassidy Hutchinson falsely claimed to have drafted a handwritten note for President Trump on January 6,” he wrote.

“Former Representative Liz Cheney should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering based on the new information about her communication.”

Cheney, the former No. 3 House Republican, returned fire Tuesday afternoon, accusing Loudermilk of “lies and defamatory allegations.”

“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.

“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,” Cheney went on.

“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 panel’s recommendation carries no inherent weight and it’s unclear if Trump’s nominees to lead the Justice Department are likely to act on the recommendation.

Trump, 78, has nominated former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead the Justice Department and former adviser Kash Patel to serve as FBI director.

Trump and Cheney clashed on foreign policy matters throughout his first term and he called for her to be thrown out of Congress in his pre-riot speech, citing her actions to block him from withdrawing troops from war zones.

“In a year from now, you’re going to start working on Congress and we got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world. We got to get rid of them,” Trump said before thousands of his supporters stormed the Capitol.

“You know, she never wants a soldier brought home — I brought a lot of our soldiers home… They’re in countries that nobody even knows the name, nobody knows where they are. They’re dying. They’re great, but they’re dying. They’re losing their arms, their legs, their face.”

Trump supported now-Wyoming GOP Rep. Harriet Hageman in unseating Cheney in the 2022 midterm elections. In turn, Cheney and her father — former Vice President Dick Cheney — supported Vice President Kamala Harris in her failed campaign against Trump this year.

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