GOP report recommends Liz Cheney be criminally investigated over Jan. 6 work

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. The "tampering" here is Cheney saying "get your own lawyer who represents just you, not Trump and his minions"

Which is neutral advice that Hutchinson really did need.

Hutchinson’s initial lawyer, Stefan Passantino, was accused of encouraging her to say she remembered little about the day and said she would be able to get a good job in Trump World.

The interim report shows texts between Hutchinson and Alyssa Farah Griffin, another former White House aide, and accuses Farah Griffin of acting as a backchannel between the two women.

It later notes that Hutchinson reached out to Cheney, with the lawmaker in her own book noting she advised the aide to seek an attorney as “every witness deserves an attorney who will represent their interests exclusively.”

You may recall that, as early as September 2022, Hutchinson, in a closed-door interview conducted by the January 6 select committee, said that a former member of Trump’s White House counsel assigned to her was advising her to answer “I don’t recall” and “to use that response as much as you deem necessary” during her upcoming testimony. From CBS News:

Hutchinson walked the panel through her early efforts to secure low-cost legal representation beginning November 2021, when she became aware she would be subpoenaed to appear before the select committee. She eventually received a call from Stefan Passantino, a former White House ethics lawyer, in early February, who said he would be representing her but declined to reveal who was paying him. Hutchinson expressed to the committee her concern of being represented by an attorney with ties to Trump and recalled telling her mother after Passantino was brought on as her lawyer that “I’m f**ked.”

Good call.

Hutchinson first met with Passantino on Feb. 16 at the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm Michael Best, she told investigators, and said he urged her to “downplay your role. ‘You were a secretary,’ ” Hutchinson said Passantino told her, according to the transcript. “ ‘You had an administrative role. Everyone’s on the same page about this.’ ” Passantino also told Hutchinson, “We’re going to take care of you,” she revealed to the committee.

Being taken care of by a Trump-connected lawyer does not sound very similar to being taken care of by the Sisters of Mercy. Hutchinson was sharp enough to realize this and went shopping for her own lawyer. She found him and they negotiated her public testimony to the January 6 select committee, which was one of the highlights of the hearings. Now it seems as though Loudermilk is accusing Hutchinson and Cheney of conspiring to find an attorney who would actually act in Hutchinson’s interest. Horrors. Also, Loudermilk’s report implies that Hutchinson’s testimony at the hearings was perjurious as a result of this effort. Good luck proving that, rube.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a63229294/representative-loudermilk-investigation-liz-cheney-matt-gaetz-report/