WASHINGTON (AP) — As they wrap up their own investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, House Republicans have concluded that it is former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney who should be prosecuted because she investigates what happened when then-President Donald Trump sent his gang of supporters. Congress certified the 2020 election.
The findings released Tuesday show the Republican Party is working to reinforce Trump's desire to punish his perceived enemies, including Cheney and members of the Jan. 6 commission who the president-elect has said should be in jail .
House Administration Committee Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., wrote: “Until we hold those responsible accountable and reform our institutions, we will not fully regain trust.”
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The Republican panel's 128-page interim report arrives as Trump prepares his return to the White House and works to staff his administration with top-level officials, including Kash Patel as FBI director, who appear like-minded in his attempts at retaliation. Trump also promises to pardon people convicted for their role in the Capitol riot.
It revises long-running Republican arguments that Trump is not responsible for the attack on the Capitol. The Justice Department has prosecuted about 1,500 people, including leaders of the militant Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, and charged Trump with four criminal charges, including conspiracy to overturn the election. Special counsel Jack Smith has since dropped the case against Trump ahead of the inauguration, in accordance with Justice Department guidelines that sitting presidents cannot be indicted.
But the new report's conclusion points to Cheney, the former vice president's daughter, and herself, once a rising conservative star, being ousted from the Republican leadership after her vote to impeach Trump for inciting the insurrection . Once she became vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, Cheney lost her own reelection to a Trump-backed challenger in Wyoming. In the fall, Cheney tried to prevent Trump from returning to the White House after campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Cheney on Tuesday provided a detailed defense of her committee's painstaking work, the 900-page Jan. 6 report released in December 2022, saying Loudermilk's own report “ignores the truth.”
“January 6 showed Donald Trump for who he really is: a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks against our Capitol and law enforcement to continue while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave,” Cheney said . said in a statement.
“Now Chairman Loudermilk's 'Interim Report' willfully ignores the truth and the Select Committee's vast body of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory accusations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump has done.”
President Joe Biden is considering issuing a pardon to spare members of Congress and others from Trump's wrath. But several involved have said they do not seek or want a pardon from Biden.
Among those Trump wants prosecuted are Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Cheney and other members of the Jan. 6 committee, as well as Smith, the DOJ special counsel who indicted Trump.
The release of the report comes at a time when Congress will be asked to certify the results of the 2024 election in the coming weeks. But unlike four years ago, when Republicans refused to accept Biden's victory over Trump and alleged voter fraud, Democrats say they trust and accept the election results.
The GOP panel's findings reexamine the many security shortcomings on Jan. 6, 2021, and revive the dispute over the delay in deploying the National Guard, which along with police reinforcements brought order at nightfall recovered in the Capitol. Congress returned to work that evening and worked into the next morning to certify the 2020 election for Biden.
“This report reveals that there was not just a single cause for what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6,” Loudermilk wrote in an introduction. “The Capitol is not safer today.”
But Loudermilk focuses just as intently on the Jan. 6 committee that then-Speaker Pelosi stood up in the aftermath to investigate what happened, and its leaders, Speaker Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Cheney.
The report singles out Cheney for prosecution for her role in working with one of the key witnesses against Trump, a former young White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, who provided some of the most detailed descriptions of the defeated president's actions. day.
Hutchinson had been testifying before the Jan. 6, 2022, committee when she learned she had not been open during her initial interviews with the panel and had fought a “moral battle” and wanted to return.
She ultimately ditched her Trump-affiliated lawyer and later held a successful public hearing, describing Trump in the White House as the Capitol riot unfolded.
Cheney, in her book “Oath and Honor” about the commission's work, said she had been crucial in meeting with Cassidy and was concerned for her safety when she decided to come forward.
Loudermilk's panel concludes that these actions constitute witness tampering and are grounds for prosecution.
“Numerous federal laws were likely violated by Liz Cheney,” the commission wrote in its conclusion. “These violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
It also says Thompson violated House rules in handling files and transcripts.
Thompson said the report was filled with “baseless” allegations. “There is no escaping the reality that Donald Trump bears responsibility for the deadly January 6 attack, no matter how much Mr. Loudermilk would like to rewrite history,” he said.
Trump, in an interview earlier this month, reiterated his campaign promises to go after those who blamed him for Jan. 6.
“Frankly, they should go to jail,” referring to members of Congress investigating the attack on the Capitol.
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