'Lies and defamatory allegations': Liz Cheney hits back at Republican over J6 report

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) hit back at the House GOP's attempts to discredit the Select Committee on January 6 in a scathing statement Tuesday.

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) released what he called his second "report" on Jan. 6 this week. In it, he sought to absolve President-elect Donald Trump of all responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, instead blaming Democratic leadership, Capitol Police, and members of the intelligence community — and urging the FBI to open a criminal investigation into Cheney over how she engaged with witnesses.

Loudermilk has denied the investigation aimed to shift blame. “It wasn’t to exonerate anybody," he said. "It wasn’t to say one side was right, one side was wrong. It was to get to the facts of what really happened. Because you can’t fix a problem until you get to the root of the problem.”

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But Cheney, one of the few conservative Republicans to join Democrats in the original House investigation, wasn't buying his explanation.

"January 6th showed Donald Trump for who he really is — a cruel and vindictive man who has 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," Cheney said in her statement. "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 ... The Department of Justice conducted its own independent investigation and reached the same fundamental conclusions."

"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," she continued. "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."

Trump has already vowed to pardon most people convicted of crimes for storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 and demanded that members of the original Select Committee investigating it should "go to jail."