President-elect Donald Trump reignited his longstanding feud with former Rep. Liz Cheney, saying she “could be in a lot of trouble” following a House subcommittee report accusing her of wrongdoing while serving on the panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Trump’s post cites a 128-page report released Tuesday by the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee chaired by GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk that accuses Cheney of colluding with top witnesses and calls for her to be investigated for witness tampering. “Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee,” Trump wrote. “Which states that ‘numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the FBI.’”
The report also accuses members of the Jan. 6 committee of withholding evidence and failing to preserve records from its investigation. It places blame for the attack on a “series of intelligence, security, and leadership failures at several levels and numerous entities” rather than Trump, who urged his supporters to march on the Capitol that day during an earlier rally near the White House.
Trump has made no secret of his plans to seek retribution against political foes once he returns to the White House, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” earlier this month that members of the House Jan. 6 panel “should go to jail.” But he also dialed back a promise to pursue criminal investigations against President Joe Biden and his family, telling NBC News that “I’m not looking to go back into the past” and that “Retribution will be through success.”
Trump has also indicated he will consider pardons for those who were at the Capitol on Jan. 6 “within the first nine minutes” of his term.
“And if they were non-violent, I think they’ve been greatly punished,” Trump told Time when he was announced as the magazine’s “Person of the Year.” “And the answer is I will be doing that, yeah, I’m going to look if there’s some that really were out of control.”
In a statement, Cheney defended her work while taking a shot at Trump.
“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 in a statement.
“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.”
In the final days of the 2024 campaign, Trump called Cheney a “radical war hawk” who should face “nine barrels shooting at her,” suggesting she should be placed on the front lines.
Cheney, a one-time member of GOP House leadership before losing a primary contest following her criticism of Trump, played a central role in the Jan. 6 committee as one of the only two Republicans on the panel.