Donald Trump is not yet in office, but his not-so-slow train of political retaliation against his rivals has already left the station. After filing a lawsuit against an Iowa newspaper over its poll showing Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa, the president-elect now has an FBI investigation into former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney over her work on the Jan. 6 House committee advocated.

“Liz Cheney could be in big trouble based on the subcommittee’s evidence that Liz Cheney likely violated numerous federal laws and those violations should be investigated by the FBI.” Thank you Congressman Barry Loudermilk for a job well done. Newsmax, by Greg Kelly,” Trump wrote on Truth Social early Wednesday morning.

On Tuesday, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), chairman of the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee, released an interim report on the GOP’s counter-investigation to the committee’s bipartisan Jan. 6 investigation, which recommended criminal charges against Trump over his actions Involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Loudermilk accused Cheney of “colluding with ‘star witness’ Cassidy Hutchinson” and recommended that she be investigated “for possible criminal witness tampering.”

Hutchinson – a former White House adviser in the Trump administration – testified under oath before the committee that her Trump-affiliated lawyer Stefan Passantino advised her to mislead the committee about her recollection of events before and on January 6 to lead. Hutchinson ultimately fired Passantino days before her public testimony.

In a response to Loudermilk, Cheney wrote that the interim report accusing her of witness tampering “intentionally ignores the truth and the tremendous weight of evidence presented by the Select Committee and instead fabricates lies and defamatory accusations to cover up what Donald Trump did.” “Your claims do not reflect a review of the actual evidence and are a malicious and cowardly attack on the truth.”

“No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously,” she added.

But serious lawyers are not the ones who can decide what happens next under Trump’s second administration. Trump’s nominees to lead the Justice Department and FBI — Pam Bondi and Kash Patel — are staunch Trump loyalists who have openly expressed a desire to use federal law enforcement as a means to punish Trump’s opponents and critics.

In 2023, Bondi told Fox News that “the investigators are under investigation (…) because they were hiding in the shadows in the Deep State – President Trump’s last term in office.” But now they are in the spotlight, they can all be investigated and the house needs to be cleaned up.”

Patel, Trump’s FBI nominee, described Cheney in his book as “the primary architect” of the alleged misinformation spread by the committee on Jan. 6 government gangsters, which included a list of 60 other so-called “deep state” activists who he said should be banned from public life.

A loyal supporter through and through, Patel could take his marching orders directly from Trump. Earlier this month, the president-elect told NBC News: “For what they did, the lawmakers who were on the committee on January 6, quite frankly, should go to jail.”