Former President Donald Trump suggested that believes former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), the co-chair of the controversial House Jan. 6 committee, should face prosecution for withholding evidence during her time on the panel.
“She should be prosecuted for what she has done to our country! She illegally destroyed the evidence. Unreal!!” he wrote on Truth Social.
That article came on the heels of a House Republican-released report last week that found that pieces of evidence and testimony that favored the former president was not included in the Jan. 6 committee’s final report. They also wrote that a key witness’s third-hand claims about President Trump were disputed by the Secret Service driver involved in the alleged incident.
The former congresswoman—who lost her Wyoming House primary in 2022 by 40 percentage points—was referring to four felony charges against the former president over alleged efforts by him to overturn the 2020 election.
The trial has been delayed as his lawyers have submitted a petition to the Supreme Court arguing that his activity after the election fall under presidential immunity, saying he should not be prosecuted because he was working under his capacity as commander-in-chief.
On Monday, President Trump also asked whether former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson would be prosecuted after a recent report cast doubt on her claims she made about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
Last week, a report released by House Republicans found that a Secret Service agent who was transporting the former president on the day refuted Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony that President Trump attempted to grab the wheel of the vehicle.
The agent, whose name hasn’t been released to the public, told a House panel that he “did not see him reach,” adding that President Trump “never grabbed the steering wheel,” the agent said, according to a transcript of what he said. “I didn’t see him lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.”
The testimony was given to the Democrat-dominated Jan. 6 select committee convened to investigate the Capitol breach during the previous Congress, but the transcript wasn’t released by the committee. Quotes from the testimony were included in last week’s Republican-commissioned report.
“Our great Secret Service has totally CRUSHED Cassidy Hutchinson’s (who I barely knew) made up (FAKE!) stories about me roughing up Secret Service Agents from the back seat of the Beast (Limo),” the former president wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday, responding to the new report.
“Has she now changed her testimony? Will she be prosecuted for what she did and said? What about the Unselect J6 Committee. They destroyed almost everything, including real evidence and findings. What’s going to happen with them – Serious crimes have been committed?” he asked on the social media platform.
Ms. Hutchinson, the former White House aide, testified to the panel in her fourth interview, in 2022, that she was told by Anthony Ornato, another Secret Service agent, that he was informed by a fellow agent that President Trump attempted to grab the steering wheel.
“Tony said something to the effect of, ‘did you hear what [expletive] happened?'” Ms. Hutchinson testified on June 20, 2022. Mr. Ornato then “retold the story,” she said. According to that story, when President Trump entered the vehicle—which Ms. Hutchinson said was the presidential vehicle known as the Beast—after his speech at the Ellipse, he said he wanted to travel to the Capitol.
The driver, who clarified that it was an SUV and not the Beast, according to the transcript, did say that President Trump wanted to go to the Capitol on Jan. 6, corroborating at least one claim made by Ms. Hutchinson.
But Republicans said in the report that much of her story about the former president was was false.
“Despite the driver of the president’s SUV testifying under oath that the Hutchinson story was false, the select committee chose to validate and promote Hutchinson’s version of the story as fact. The select committee hid the driver’s full testimony and only favorably mentioned his testimony in its final report, it did not release the full transcript,” the House Republicans said.
Since the release of the report, Ms. Hutchinson has not issued a public statement on the matter. Ms. Hutchinson’s lawyer has not responded to a previous Epoch Times request for comment.
