WASHINGTON — A Republican leader said Tuesday that the FBI should investigate former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., for her involvement in last Congress’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots.

“Based on the evidence collected by this subcommittee, Liz Cheney, the former vice chair of the January 6 Select Committee, likely violated numerous federal laws, and these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” said a published interim report by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., chairman of the House Administration oversight subcommittee that investigated the Jan. 6 special committee.

The report claimed that Republicans had found evidence that Cheney “manipulated at least one witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, by secretly communicating with Hutchinson without her attorney’s knowledge.”

“This secret communication with a witness is inadmissible,” the report states.

Additionally, the report said the FBI should investigate Cheney for allegedly violating a law that prohibits any person from enticing another person to commit perjury. what Republicans accused Hutchinson of in her testimony before the committee.

The report accused Cheney of helping Hutchinson find a new lawyer; While the report claimed that they spoke directly to each other without an attorney’s knowledge, it suggested that Republicans did not appear to know what they were talking about.

Cheney said in a statement responding to the report that Jan. 6 showed Trump who he really was: “a cruel and vengeful man who allowed violent attacks against our Capitol and law enforcement officers to continue while he watched television.” and refused to do so for hours.” Instruct his followers to resign and leave.

The select committee’s 10 public hearings and final report were attended by numerous Republican witnesses, including many senior officials from the White House, the Trump campaign and Trump’s administration, Cheney noted in the statement. Her testimony was laid out in thousands of pages of transcripts and a “very detailed and carefully sourced” 800-page report that were made public and whose conclusions the Justice Department also reached in a separate investigation, she said.

Loudermilk’s interim report “willfully disregards the truth and the select committee’s enormous burden of evidence and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations to cover up what Donald Trump did,” she claimed. “Your allegations do not reflect an examination of the actual evidence and are a malicious and cowardly attack on the truth.”

Responding to the report on Wednesday, Trump said on Truth Social that Cheney “could be in big trouble based on the evidence received from the subcommittee.”

Trump suggested in a recent exclusive interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that the members of the Jan. 6 panel should be jailed. Those former members, including the Democratic chairman, said the committee did nothing wrong and did not violate the law.

Hutchinson was considered the key witness of the January 6 Committee, which was formed in the last Congress under the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and included two Republicans: Cheney, who was vice chairman, and then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger from Illinois. Hutchinson, a close aide to Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, testified before the committee both privately and publicly that she was aware of the preparations on January 6 and the events that day.

Hutchinson testified that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato told her that after Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally at the White House Ellipse, Trump insisted to the Secret Service that he go to the Capitol, where he later encouraged his followers. Hutchinson testified that she was told that Trump berated his security guards after they were told they couldn’t go to the Capitol, grabbed the steering wheel of his SUV from the back seat and then grabbed the “collarbones.” Bobby Engel, Trump’s security chief, eventually forwarded his account to Ornato.

While Republicans say there have been witnesses who have disputed Hutchinson’s testimony, others have also confirmed this. Ornato later told the committee that he did not remember the conversation they allegedly had with Engel.

An attorney who represented Hutchinson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Her lawyers previously said in a statement that she stands by her Jan. 6 testimony to the committee.