AKA--SUBORNING PERJURY:

While many witnesses have cooperated fully, Cheney noted that not everyone had, pointing to outreach from Trump associates as a pattern of "significant concern."

Declining to name who received the messages or sent them, Cheney mentioned the account of one witness who received multiple phone calls from "people" about that person's upcoming testimony.

"What they said to me is, as long as I continue to be a team player, they know that I'm on the team, I'm doing the right thing, I'm protecting who I need to protect, you know, I'll continue to stay in good graces in Trump World," the witness told the committee, according to a transcript displayed on screen and read aloud during the hearing. "And they have reminded me a couple of times that Trump does read transcripts and just to keep that in mind as I proceeded through my depositions and interviews with the committee."

In another example, Cheney said that another witness described a particular phone call.

"[A person] let me know you have your deposition tomorrow," that second witness said the caller relayed. "He wants me to let you know that he's thinking about you. He knows you're loyal and you're going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition."

Cheney did not say what the committee, which does not have prosecutorial powers, intends to do with the information. "I think most Americans know that attempting to influence witnesses to testify untruthfully presents very serious concerns," she said. "We will be discussing these issues as a committee and carefully considering our next steps."

But veteran prosecutors say witness intimidation is a serious crime punishable with jail time, and it can often be much easier to prove than a sprawling conspiracy or a novel line of attack in a criminal prosecution over the insurrection itself. That could be attractive to the Justice Department, which has launched a probe into the scheme to submit fake electors to overturn the 2020 election results.

"Sometimes defendants or subjects do you a big favor by doing something like lying to you or interfering with a witness because it may be that you never would have been able to put the whole thing together, but boy here's a gift-wrapped present with a bow," said Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney in Michigan under President Barack Obama who is now a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. "It could be a very tidy little charge if they can prove who sent that message."

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