Rep Liz Cheney said on Thursday that the Jan 6 committee will consider criminal referrals for attempts by members of Trumpworld to intimidate or affect the testimony of witnesses before their panel.
Ms Cheney told Good Morning America: "It's something we take very seriously. And it's something that people should be aware of. It's a very serious issue, and I would imagine the Department Justice would be very interested in and we'll take that very seriously as well.”
The attempts they have witnessed so far “gives us a real insight into how people around the former president are operating”, she added.
The Wyoming Republican lawmaker also delivered a scorching condemnation of her party and Donald Trump on Wednesday following an explosive hearing of the January 6 committee a day earlier.
In a speech to guests at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, a monument to one of the GOP’s most well-known leaders, Ms Cheney excoriated the former president for his ongoing attempts to undermine confidence in the US elections system and rule of law in general.
“At this moment, we are confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before — and that is a former president who is attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic,” she told attendees, accoring to The New York Times.
“He is aided by Republican leaders and elected officials who made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man,” Ms Cheney continued. “Even after all we’ve seen, they’re enabling his lies.”
The remarks were not poorly received, according to news reports which also noted that the crowd gave Ms Cheney a standing ovation as she entered the venue.
They come on the heels of testimony from a top aide to Mark Meadows, the ex-White House chief of staff, that revealed exactly how much Mr Trump and his team knew about the likelihood of violence erupting on Jan 6 as a result of their efforts to overturn the election, but persisted with the illegal scheme anyway.
Cassidy Hutchinson told the Jan 6 committee on Tuesday that her boss confided to her that he thought Jan 6 could get “real, real bad” just days before the attack occurred, and also gave a vivid description of how the president supposedly lunged at a Secret Service agent from the back of his armoured SUV and attempted to steer the car towards the Capitol after being informed following his Ellipse rally that he would not be taken to the Capitol to aid his supporters.
She also hammered home that the Trump team and their allies have known for months that the crowd was not only violent but well armed, including with handguns, batons, and AR-15-style rifles that are wholly illegal to carry in the District of Columbia. Pro-Trump pundits like Tucker Carlson have spun lies for months about how the crowd was peaceful and unarmed, and therefore did not constitute an “insurrection” in their minds.
Ms Cheney commented on that testimony in an interview that was published by Good Morning America on Thursday; in that conversation Ms Cheney told ABC’s Jon Karl that she has full faith in the accuracy of Ms Hutchinson’s testimony (despite denials from Mr Trump and the US Secret Service).
