Liz Cheney May Need That Preemptive Pardon After House Committee Issues Criminal Referral
“This report outlines criminal recommendations against former Representative Liz Cheney.”

Somewhere, former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) is unleashing a primal scream.
Following former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s explosive testimony in June 2022, then-Vice Chair of the Jan. 6 Committee Cheney was sure she had her smoking gun. Her star witness had delivered the goods on former President Donald Trump.
Upon closer scrutiny, however, it was discovered that several of Hutchinson’s allegations did not add up. It wasn’t long before the chasm between her statements and reality grew. And her bombshell testimony was discredited.
Now, it is Cheney herself who is under the microscope for “potential criminal witness tampering.” On Tuesday, House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight Chair Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) released an interim report on his committee’s findings on the events surrounding January 6, 2021, as well as their investigation into the politicization of the January 6th Select Committee, which clearly states, “This report outlines criminal recommendations against former Representative Liz Cheney.”
The first four of the top ten findings in the press release that accompanied the report pertain to Cheney:
1. Former Representative Liz Cheney colluded with “star witness” Cassidy Hutchinson without Hutchinson’s attorney’s knowledge.
2. Former Representative Liz Cheney should be investigated for potential criminal witness tampering based on the new information about her communication.
3. 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.
- 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.
- Representative Cheney and Cassidy Hutchinson baselessly attempted to disbar Hutchinson’s former attorney.
4. Former Representative Liz Cheney used the January 6 Select Committee as a tool to attack President Trump, at the cost of investigative integrity and Capitol security.
The full report can be viewed here. Perhaps its most damning allegation of all is that the J-6 committee never even tried to corroborate Hutchinson’s accusations, which, had it been conducting an impartial — and ethical — investigation, would have been its first course of action.
BREAKING.🚨@OversightAdmn is referring Liz Cheney for a *CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION* due to her partisan activities on the J6 committee.
The House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight gave its recommendation in an interim report on former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s now-disbanded,… pic.twitter.com/4ggvk36laU
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) December 17, 2024
According to the report, “Based on the evidence obtained by this Subcommittee, numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, the former Vice Chair of the January 6 Select Committee, and these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” [Emphasis added.]
It stated, “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.”
Hutchinson’s testimony began to unravel shortly after she left the stand. She testified that Tony Ornato, former Trump Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, told her that former President Donald Trump repeatedly demanded that the Secret Service take him to the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to FOX News. She also claimed that Ornato told her that Trump had “lunged” at a Secret Service agent and tried to grab the wheel of the presidential SUV.
The Secret Service immediately disputed her allegations and said agents were ready to say so — under oath.
Additionally, Hutchinson claimed in her testimony that she had written a recommended statement for Trump on a notecard on Jan. 6, which read, “Anyone who entered the Capitol without proper authority should leave immediately,” according to The Washington Examiner.
However, shortly after Hutchinson’s testimony had wrapped up, a representative for former White House attorney Eric Herschmann told ABC News that Herschmann had written this note. “All sources with direct knowledge and law enforcement have and will confirm that it was written by Mr. Herschmann,” the representative said.
Shown a copy of the note during a Jan. 6 committee hearing, Hutchinson said, “That’s a note that I wrote at the direction of the [then-White House] chief of staff [Mark Meadows] on Jan. 6, likely around 3 o’clock.”
“And it’s written on the chief of staff note card, but that’s your handwriting, Ms. Hutchinson?” Cheney then asked.
“That’s my handwriting,” Hutchinson answered.
According to Fox News, the report concluded that “Hutchinson’s testimony to the Jan. 6 committee was crucial.” The report goes on to state:
It is unlikely the Select Committee could make its assertions about President Trump’s mood, attitude, and alleged culpability in the events of January 6″ without her comments.
Hutchinson is mentioned by name in the Select Committee’s Final Report no fewer than 185 times. Inexplicably, the Select Committee discredited the multitude of legitimate witnesses who, under oath, repeatedly refuted Hutchinson’s testimony. These legitimate witnesses include senior government officials and federal agents.
Needless to say, Cheney defended herself and the Jan. 6 committee in a Tuesday statement to Fox. She maintained that Loudermilk’s report:
… intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence.
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.
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. 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.
Two and a half years later, Cheney’s obsessive hatred for Trump has come to define her. Her bitterness and vindictiveness toward him has already cost her a House seat and her position as the Republican conference chairwoman. If the Trump FBI decides to act on this criminal recommendation, Cheney will need the preemptive pardon that Biden’s inner circle allegedly bandied about two weeks ago.
Final report released, Liz Cheney is being referred for prosecution!
Tampering with witness (Cassidy Hutchinson) & attempting to influence her testimony. This is a federal crime with a penalty of up to 20 years prison.
Report also states Jack Smith colluded with the J6… pic.twitter.com/4qi5J0K2bW
— Sequencer (@RealSeq16) December 17, 2024
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.

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Comments
This is the least of what she should be charged with. The entire J6 thing is a Reichstag fire and those in jail are political prisoners of the Deep State.
I want the Trump DOJ to nail her and anyone else involved to the fullest extent of the law and pardon all of the prisoners.
Examples need to be made.
By all means, “Lock Her Up” as Trump shouted about Hillary during his campaign. Did you happen to notice that this never happened? Trump is all bluster. He never follows through with his promises. BUILD THE WALL!LOCK HER UP!
Aw, shaddup, dingus. He did nothing of the sort.
One day we’ll wake up and you’ll be gone.
He could have easily, but chose to go high. Of course, you left out what he said afterward, which made good sense and showed he was not like the people that fantasize about locking him up. You’re likely in that group. Guess you are still suffering post-election and for being proved so wrong at EVERY turn about how you know who could never win,
And you are a raging pile of horse dung.
Why don’t you just ride off into the sunset like all other useless morons.
Do you have an inferiority complex, or were you routinely jammed into lockers during middle school? Was it against your will?
Said referral will probably need to be reissued in January since the current corrupt doj will most undoubtedly throw it straight in the trash.
Cheney and Hutchinson should share a prison cell.
Nope. Too much carpet cleaning if that were the case. They each need to be in solitary confinement.
There’s also the little part about state charges, possibly, in Georgia where false accusations were laid against Passantino to get him disbarred. Hutchinson was the instigator in that but I’m sure Lizard Cheney’s clawmarks are all over it, too.
Of course, I’m not sure where in Georgia this was … so there is just as likely a chance that some idiot, so-called “prosecutor”, there could try to charge Trump, instead …
The GOP House should have kept their cards close to their chest until AFTER Biden left office. Now, they’re practically begging Biden to pardon her which tells me they’re not serious people who want Cheney to be held accountable.
Hutchinson won’t be charged. If people remember her testimony she was quite careful to qualify every statement and claim with “to the effect of…” as in that was her understanding of what was said.
They should still go after her like a Democrat going after a trans kid! No mercy. Make her beg for forgiveness!
Break her spirit and her wallet. After all, she was complicit in the entire January 6 “insurrection” lie.
No guns except one murderer hiding behind a police shield.
Recall that if a pardon is accepted it is an admission of guilt.
With pardon, no 5thA protection… she will have to sing the right tune. With a pardon she may have an introduction to Seth Rich.
Liz would suddenly acquire retrograde amnesia regarding everything important.
Pardon does not stop disbarment proceedings
No, accepting a pardon is NOT an admission of guilt. Innocent people accept pardons all the time, and it’s common to pardon someone precisely because the executive believes them to be innocent.
There is or was a common perception that it’s an admission of guilt, but that perception was always false.
That’s an interesting question, and one that was addressed in a Supreme Court case.the issue was specifically whether a pardon removes your fifth amendment rights, and the ruling was that a person wishing to retain fifth amendment rights can decline the pardon.
Even if we were assume that no state criminal prosecution is to be considered, nothing short of a blanket pardon from POTUS would remove all 5th Amendment rights, For example, if POTUS were to pardon a person for violating treason statutes, that person would still be entitled to assert the 5th Amendment regarding testimony that might disclose violations of other statutes.
In the Hunter Biden case, he still has some 5th amendment rights because if he cheated on Federal taxes, he also cheated on State taxes, except in the few states that don’t levy income tax.
Indeed a person can decline a pardon if he wishes. But accepting it is NOT an admission of guilt.
A person can accept a pardon (thereby opening himself to compelled testimony that he might otherwise have avoided) while loudly maintaining his complete innocence.
My bet is Liz and Shifty will get blanket pardons
Well, well. An actual 1512(c)2 felony committed by the Dems (Yes, I count Cheney among their number) in their frenzied attempt to frame as many people as they could with fake 1512(c)2 charges, including Trump. The Dems are the Projection Party, no doubt.
Yes, Cheney has become a Democrat, for all practical purposes.
What’s funny is even Democrats hate her 😂😂
I expect her to take a seat quite soon on the board of The Lincoln Project to bring her wisdom and experience to bear on DC.
Cheney is as relevant as we make her and nothing more. Kamala ran on 2020 Trump ran on 2024.
I have to confess whenever Trump mentioned 2020 I went into a panic mode because I thought it would get him to talk more about it and lose.
I have never been more overjoyed to be wrong.
America does not want any further discussion of 2020 or Jan 6th, it never approved of the Democrats insurrection claims and to be blunt we have a lot to deal with in the next congress.
Perhaps Trump should pardon her with the Jan 6th prisoners, and so have a Democrat with them for balance.
This may be the least of what Biden will do to the country before he leaves office, to cement his legacy as the cruelest, most corrupt, worst president in American history.
One can hope that the aura around his puppet master, Obama, will fade and he, too, will be seen as a poor president who gave little, but ingratiated himself to millions as the behest of guilty white liberals and progressives.
Biden is senile and the history books will factor that in for his legacy.
For Obama having his senile puppet release judge kids for kickbacks will be in all the histories if the woke side loses.
May not get it. Both sides see political renegades’ loyalty can’t be trusted. Repub defectors are happily accepted by Dems until they are no longer needed. Then the traitors are stuck in limbo, not wanted by either side. Unfortunately, the forgiving Right is probably accepting renegade Dems which will be the new faces of RINO
SCOTUS should reject the idea that a president has preemptive pardon power, doesn’t make sense, would imply the possibility of horrible scenarios that our Framers of our Constitution surely did not intend. The simply & short wording of Constitution, Article II, Section 2, Clause 1, grants the President the power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” People are innocent until proven guilty, hence if not convicted there is no “offence against the United States.” Can’t pardon someone innocent before the law. And there is nothing in those words to express a pardon power for crimes not even indicted for or for crimes yet to be discovered. Hence if Biden does “pardon” a bunch of democrat Trump’s DOJ should go after their crimes as if the “pardon” is invalid and let SCOTUS clarify.
She may find herself in the cold. The useful idiots seldom realize their status.
If she doesn’t get a pardon, she might claim in her defense that the J6 committee was not doing a real investigation, but a made for TV dog and pony show, and everything she did was authorized and ordered by Nancy Pelosi, making it an official legislative act, so she has absolute Constitutional immunity.