Liz Cheney spent two years telling America her January 6 case was bulletproof.
Now the witness she built that case on is facing criminal charges.
And the text messages Republicans just uncovered show exactly how she did it.
Cassidy Hutchinson Committed Perjury and the January 6 Committee Knew It
Cassidy Hutchinson – an aide to Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows – was the crown jewel of Liz Cheney's January 6 case.
She testified that Trump grew so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol that he lunged for the driver and grabbed the steering wheel of his presidential limo on January 6, 2021.
The country watched it live.
It was the most dramatic moment of the entire two-year production — and not a word of it came from someone who was actually there.
Hutchinson admitted under oath she didn't witness it herself.
She claimed she heard it from Tony Ornato, the White House deputy chief of staff for operations.
Ornato later said he never told her that story.
The Secret Service agent who was in the vehicle said the same thing.
Jack Smith – who spent years trying to build the strongest possible criminal case against Trump – reviewed every word of Hutchinson's testimony and told the House Judiciary Committee she wasn't a powerful witness in his probe.
Most of her stories were hearsay, inadmissible in court.
On story after story, Smith found witnesses "seeing it from a different perspective."
He couldn't even confirm who wrote a specific note she claimed to have authored in the White House.
"We hadn't made final determinations," Smith told the committee.
That's a prosecutor describing his own star witness.
How Liz Cheney Used Witness Tampering to Build Her January 6 Case
Hutchinson's original attorney was Stefan Passantino – the top ethics lawyer from the first Trump administration.
Under Passantino's representation, she sat for three interviews with the select committee.
She was cooperative, recalled limited information, and never once mentioned the steering wheel story — not to the committee, not to her attorney, not to her closest friends.
Then Liz Cheney got involved.
Using Alyssa Farah Griffin – a former Trump White House Communications Director turned Trump critic, now a co-host of The View – as a go-between, Cheney established secret contact with Hutchinson through Signal, the encrypted messaging app, while Hutchinson was still represented by Passantino.
Cheney knew it was wrong.
The text evidence shows Griffin warned Hutchinson that Cheney's "one concern was so long as you have counsel, she can't really ethically talk to you without him."
Cheney did it anyway.
Hutchinson fired Passantino and hired attorneys the Loudermilk report describes as committee-friendly.
Less than two weeks later, she sat for a fourth interview under unusual circumstances.
The room was nearly empty – a stark departure from the dozen-plus attendees at every prior session.
Hutchinson, for the first time, produced the steering wheel story and the "Hang Mike Pence" story.
The House Administration Subcommittee under Barry Loudermilk documented all of it in a formal report released in December 2024 – and referred Cheney to the FBI for federal witness tampering.
Liz Cheney Took a Pardon and Left Her Star Witness to Face the DOJ Alone
Joe Biden spent his last hours as president on January 20, 2025, issuing pardons.
He pardoned Liz Cheney.
She said publicly there was nothing to be pardoned for.
Then she accepted it anyway.
The woman who closed the January 6 hearings by warning on national television that her committee would treat any effort to influence witness testimony as criminal – the woman who threatened criminal referrals against anyone who tampered with witnesses – quietly accepted a pardon for witness tampering on the same morning Donald Trump was being inaugurated.
Passantino – the lawyer Cheney's operation spent years trying to destroy – was cleared of misconduct by ethics investigators in both DC and Georgia.
He has since filed a $67 million lawsuit against the federal government.
The man they tried to disbar walks free.
The witness they built is now facing the Justice Department.
The Production Is Over and the Bill Is Coming Due
Cheney built her entire post-Congress career on the January 6 Committee's credibility.
She wrote a book about it, collected the Presidential Citizens Medal from Biden, and campaigned with Kamala Harris on the strength of a case that was never what she said it was.
The committee's most spectacular evidence – the moment that made viewers gasp and gave cable news a week of wall-to-wall coverage – came from a witness Cheney secretly coached after cutting out that witness's attorney.
Barry Loudermilk has spent three years doing the unglamorous work of pulling that production apart thread by thread.
Now Jim Jordan has co-signed the criminal referral of Hutchinson to the Justice Department.
The Loudermilk report states it plainly: Hutchinson committed perjury, Cheney suborned it, and the committee promoted claims it knew were false.
Cheney's pardon protects her from prosecution.
It does not protect the woman she put on that witness stand.
Sources:
- Katelyn Polantz, Annie Grayer, Evan Perez, "GOP lawmakers push for charges against former White House aide for Jan. 6 testimony," CNN, March 6, 2026.
- Rep. Barry Loudermilk, Interim Report of the House Administration Committee Subcommittee on Oversight, December 17, 2024, cha.house.gov.
- "GOP report recommends Liz Cheney be criminally investigated over Jan. 6 work," Fox News, December 18, 2024.
- "New Texts Reveal Liz Cheney Communicated with Cassidy Hutchinson About Her Select Committee Testimony," House Committee on Administration, October 15, 2024.
- "Biden issues pre-emptive pardons for Jan. 6 committee and witnesses," NBC News, January 20, 2025.
- "Cheney Should Be Investigated For Her Corruption, Not Rewarded," The Federalist, January 3, 2025.
