The Cheney Family Rule of Lawlessness

Solemn lectures about adhering to the "rule of law" by Liz Cheney fall flat amid new revelations she tampered with the J6 committee's star witness and misled the American people in the process.

Looks like the (poisoned) apple didn’t fall far from the inveterate lying Cheney family tree.

Just as former Congresswoman Liz Cheney (RINO-DC) hits the campaign trail in the upper Midwest this week with Kamala Harris, new reports exposing Cheney’s conduct during her ironfisted rule of the January 6 Select Committee suggest the disgraced and bitter NeverTrumper may have committed several offenses in her lust to put Donald Trump behind bars.

Her recently disclosed interactions with the committee’s star witness Cassidy Hutchinson could very well represent federal crimes including tampering with a witness, suborning perjury, obstructing an official proceeding, and fabricating evidence.

Last week, a House subcommittee revealed encrypted text messages between Cheney and Hutchinson, a former aide to Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, prior to her explosive public testimony in the summer of 2022. House Administration's Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga) said the texts demonstrate how Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former co-worker of Hutchinson who now works as a harpy on “The View,” acted as the intermediary between Cheney and Hutchinson beginning in April 2022. By that point, Hutchinson, a subject of the committee’s investigation at the time, had testified twice behind closed doors. 

Text messages further show how Farah Griffin discussed the possibility of Hutchinson providing new testimony in a third interview that “would include her never-before-heard story that alleged that President Trump agreed with rioters chanting ‘Hang Mike Pence.’” Hutchinson sat for a third deposition in May.

The following month, despite being represented by another attorney, Hutchinson texted Cheney on the Signal messaging app seeking a “private conversation.”

Shortly thereafter, Hutchinson fired Stefan Passantino, a former Trump White House attorney, and allowed two Cheney-recommended lawyers to represent her pro bono. (Hutchinson had privately worried about her mounting legal bills.) Cheney almost solely conducted a fourth interview of Hutchinson in June 2022 where, according to Loudermilk, “Hutchinson testified to some of her most outlandish new claims.”

A Lyin’ Star is Born

What followed was Hutchinson’s televised testimony on June 28, 2022, which produced the most sensational moment of the committee’s made-for-TV performances. In a dramatic account of Trump’s alleged behavior on January 6, Hutchinson claimed the former president became “irate” when his security detail told him it wasn’t safe to go to the Capitol following his speech at the Ellipse. “The president reached up to the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel…then used his free hand to lunge at Bobby Engel [the head of Trump’s detail].”

Hutchinson then grabbed her own neck to re-enact the alleged attack.

While the outlandish story resulted in wall-to-wall headlines—including swooning praise from “legal experts” at National Review and The Dispatch—it was not true. “This story has never been corroborated and was directly refuted by both USSS agents in the vehicle with Trump that day,” Loudermilk concluded.

Further, Hutchinson’s new Cheney-recommended lawyers submitted a 15-page “errata” sheet to the select committee in September 2022 that made significant changes to her earlier testimony. Among the many revisions included claims she had heard about the presence of weapons including firearms at the Ellipse; Trump’s alleged resistance to making a video calling for calm at the Capitol; and the SUV story.

Hutchinson’s errata also clarified testimony that she had taken quick dictation from Meadows as the protest escalated that afternoon. Under oath, Hutchinson claimed Meadows asked her to write down, “Anyone who entered the Capitol illegally without proper authority should leave immediately” on a note card. The word “illegally” was scratched out.

Cheney presented the note during Hutchinson’s televised testimony and asked her to confirm that she had written the note and to explain the meaning of the sentence. 

Except that, like basically everything out of her mouth, also was untrue. In what has to be the most head-scratching falsehoods of all the many January 6 falsehoods is that Hutchinson wrote the note. 

She did not.

And her testimony has been in dispute for more than two years. Shortly after Hutchinson’s testimony, White House lawyer Eric Herschmann publicly disputed her claim and stated he had written the note. According to a handwriting expert hired by Loudermilk’s team, Herschmann, not Hutchinson, was telling the truth.

A comparison of the note and Hutchinson’s writing sample provides a laughable contrast:

Why on earth did Hutchinson lie about something as inconsequential as a note? Why did she lie about what happened in the presidential vehicle that afternoon when she knew others would not corroborate her story?

Why did she throw Herschmann, who by all appearance provided her with sound legal advice to protect her from the bloodthirsty sharks on the J6 committee, under the bus? (Cheney also led a public campaign to discredit Passantino resulting in dozens of high-powered lawyers in Washington and Georgia seeking to disbar him. Both complaints were dismissed but not before Passantino endured excessive legal costs and damage to his reputation. Passantino also filed a defamation lawsuit against MSNBC commentator Andrew Weissmann.)

Like Father, Like Daughter

Did Liz Cheney advise her to do all of the above, believing both women would get away with it and face no consequences? Was some sort of quid pro quo involved, such as Cheney promising to hook up Hutchinson with Simon & Schuster, the publisher responsible for producing three Cheney family books, to publish her own memoir, which the company did in 2023? (Simon & Schuster hosts many anti-Trump authors: John Bolton, Mary Trump, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and Christopher Steele to name a few.)

If so, such a promise could represent another crime: bribery.

Cheney often touts her devotion to the “rule of law” and insists Donald Trump has no fealty to the Constitution or laws of the land. But as is always the case with leftists, Cheney is projecting. Her secret back dealings with Hutchinson in an attempt to inflict maximum damage on Trump and mislead the American people appear to rise to the level of specific crimes and more vague statutes including conspiracy to defraud the United States, one of four charges in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against Trump in Washington.

Dick Cheney got away with defrauding the country and the world during the first war on terror. Liz Cheney should not get away with it in the second war on terror—the domestic war against Trump and his supporters.