Liz Cheney Tries to Salvage Her Imploding Committee (With a Little Help From ABC's Jon Karl)

Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool via AP

As we’ve reported, “star witness” Cassidy Hutchinson’s Jan. 6 testimony crashed on the rocks along with the credibility of the Jan. 6 Committee.

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She claimed that she had overheard Secret Service agent Tony Ornato say that President Donald Trump had lunged toward another agent, Bobby Engel, and grabbed the wheel of the limo, commonly known as “The Beast.”

But reports indicate that Ornato said he never told her that, and that both he and Bobby Engel are denying that ever happened.

Additionally, the Committee undercut her testimony when they said that Trump was riding in a Suburban, not “The Beast,” as she claimed.

On top of that, Trump lawyer Eric Herschmann said that her testimony about writing a note for former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was also false since he had written the note. The Committee’s response to that was farcical, saying that it shouldn’t matter if people had different recollections. No, the truth matters, it isn’t relative, except to the Committee.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) both went out to push the narrative after things began to fall apart but they failed miserably. They were both asked if they could corroborate the information from Hutchinson. In other words, was there any other testimony — such as the prior testimony from the agents — corroborating these claims? Schiff refused to answer, “I can’t comment on other testimony before the Committee.” Why not? You have no trouble commenting on the testimony you like from Hutchinson. Raskin was even worse, with his stumbling response to CNN’s Jake Tapper. His response made it pretty clear that they have nothing. My colleague Sister Toldjah has a great breakdown of #SteeringWheelGate.

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The effort of Schiff and Raskin was such a failure, they had to deploy Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) to try to clean it up, in an “exclusive interview” with ABC’s “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl. This “interview” said everything about the bias of the media. You would think that Karl would at least go as far as CNN’s Erin Burnett and Jake Tapper and press her about corroboration or the questions about Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony.

Instead, he painted the questions that have come out as an “active campaign to destroy her credibility.” Talk about sounding like a Democratic operative and teeing things up for Cheney.

“As you know, there’s an active campaign underway to destroy her credibility. Do you have any doubt at all in anything that she said to you?” Karl asked Cheney.

“I am absolutely confident in her credibility. I’m confident in her testimony,” Cheney told Karl in a wide-ranging interview set to air in full on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday. [….]

“We have real confidence as a committee that she testified honestly, and in her credibility, and I think the world saw that — she testified under oath, and her credibility is there for the world to judge,” Cheney said in her interview with Karl.

“She’s an incredibly brave young woman,” Cheney added. “The committee is not going to stand by and watch her character be assassinated by anonymous sources and by men who are claiming executive privilege.”

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There’s no “campaign to destroy her credibility,” there’s an immediate reaction and honest reporting about all the holes in her story. But what was incredible was Cheney claimed that Committee wasn’t going to “stand by” and let Hutchinson’s character be “assassinated by anonymous sources.” Shouldn’t the point here be to find the truth, not to defend one witness whose testimony has been called into question? Of course, truth isn’t the aim of the Committee, but this, once again, exposes that. The Secret Service said the Committee never even contacted them to corroborate this story, the agents who were there (Cassidy Hutchinson was not) are saying her story isn’t true according to reports, and the Secret Service says the agents are ready to testify in response.

So why isn’t the Committee calling them to testify? If Cheney is confident (she doesn’t look confident), why not call them? Instead, members of the Committee are going on TV shows saying anyone is welcome to testify, but they didn’t even contact the Secret Service to have these agents back. The agents already testified about that day. If they had said anything in support of this crazy story, the Committee would have put them on instead of or in addition to Hutchinson.

But Cheney doesn’t have much at this point, so all she can do is try to deflect from the story blowing up. Notice how she hugged Hutchinson, that looks very objective as well. Not.

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But that’s where we are with the Committee at this point: Truth is secondary to the narrative that they want to push — it’s all about doing what they can to damage Trump and the Republicans. But they just put a stake through the Committee by overplaying their hand with Hutchinson.

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