Liz Cheney is the House GOP's first sacrifice to Trump's revenge ...

It was no surprise to learn Tuesday that House Republicans investigating the previous investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol found fault with the committee’s processes and findings. What stands out in the interim report is its unfounded conclusion that former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., committed witness tampering and therefore “numerous federal laws were likely broken” in her role as the House Jan. 6 committee’s vice chair and “these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

We shouldn’t dismiss House Republicans’ decision to suggest that Cheney be investigated as just another round of cultish behavior toward former President Donald Trump from a party he has fully cowed. Since the GOP ousted her from House leadership, members of the caucus wishing to showcase their loyalty have made it a point to attack her. But Tuesday’s report goes beyond posturing for status and instead provides a green light for a looming onslaught of retribution from Trump.

Tuesday’s report goes beyond posturing for status and instead provides a green light for a looming onslaught of retribution from Trump.

The interim report from the House Administration Committee’s oversight subcommittee entirely dismisses the idea that Trump had any role in motivating the Jan. 6 attack. It refuses to engage with Trump’s lies that he won the 2020 election, the main impetus for his supporters’ rioting through the halls of Congress. Instead, the report overwhelmingly focuses on Cheney, specifically on her interactions with Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House staffer who testified before the committee.

When she first answered questions from the Jan. 6 committee, Hutchison was accompanied by a lawyer who was paid for by Trump’s allies. After that initial interview, Hutchinson hired her own counsel and proceeded to sit for further depositions. In those depositions, she testified about meetings in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and Trump’s state of mind as she observed him at the White House during the attack. Her appearance during the committee’s public hearings in 2022 provided some of the biggest bombshells in a production that had already had plenty.

In an attempt to discredit Hutchison’s testimony, Republicans have decided to zoom in on her swap in legal representation. As NBC News reported Wednesday, “while the report alleges they spoke directly to each other without a lawyer’s knowledge, it indicated Republicans don’t seem to know what they discussed.” But the report presumes that Cheney directed Hutchinson to retain new counsel, which Republicans say would be witness tampering and potentially violation of a law against procuring another person to commit perjury:

Based on the evidence obtained by this Subcommittee, Hutchinson committed perjury when she lied under oath to the Select Committee. Additionally, Hutchinson was interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation into President Trump. This Subcommittee sought a copy of the FBI report 302, documenting this interview and Hutchinson’s statements, but the FBI has refused to produce this vital document. The FBI must immediately review the testimony given by Hutchinson in this interview to determine if she also lied in her FBI interview, and, if so, the role former Representative Cheney played in instigating Hutchinson to radically change her testimony.

Trump has been anything but quiet about his desire to see his political enemies suffer. In an interview this month with moderator Kristen Welker on NBC’s News’ “Meet the Press,” Trump outright said Cheney and Jan. 6 committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., “should go to jail.” Though he denied that he’d sic his Kash Patel and Pam Bondi (his picks for FBI director and attorney general) on the two, as his former fixer Michael Cohen has testified, Trump has often eschewed direct orders for knowing nods.

In a statement Cheney issued after Tuesday’s interim report was released, she stressed that Jan. 6 showed Trump for who he is: “a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave.”

In a different time, for subcommittee chair Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., and his fellow Republicans to goad the FBI to investigate the official actions of a former congressperson without evidence could be dismissed as chest-thumping. In a more sensible time, even if a federal investigation into Cheney were opened, it would most likely be short-lived, a literal open-and-shut case. And a deep skepticism about any further risk of arrest or indictment without obvious legal grounds would be warranted. But given Trump’s repeated insistence to Welker that the Jan. 6 committee's members "committed a major crime" by deleting records, even though that claim has been debunked, there’s no guarantee that an absence of wrongdoing is enough to safeguard Cheney from any potential threat to her freedom.

What we are witnessing is the cowardly spectacle of Republicans providing a baseless justification for Trump’s revenge against his enemies

The country needs Republicans who are brave enough to stand firm against such potential lawlessness. But what we are witnessing is the cowardly spectacle of Republicans providing a baseless justification for Trump’s revenge against his enemies, displaying a level of submission and subservience that disregards facts and is governed solely by fear.

House Republicans backing this attack on Cheney are acting out of nothing more than spineless and gutless self-preservation. What better way to avoid being the next target of Trump, their feeling of terror whispers to them, than sacrificing Cheney on the altar of Trump’s ego? It’s a calculation that far overestimates Trump’s willingness to reciprocate acts of loyalty.

We already knew that Trump has surrounded himself with people who intend to turn the executive branch into a weapon to carry out his plans of retribution. But House Republicans have shown us a disturbing sign that GOP representatives could be willing partners in that campaign of vengeance, no matter how flimsy (or even nonexistent) the evidence is.

Hayes Brown

Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily, where he helps frame the news of the day for readers. He was previously at BuzzFeed News and holds a degree in international relations from Michigan State University.