The result has been that as the committee unfurls the story of the Jan. 6 attack — playing footage of a mostly male crowd laying waste to the Capitol in Mr. Trump’s name, with the president looking on supportively from the West Wing — many of the witnesses who have emerged most prominently have been women, with Ms. Cheney as their defender.

It is a notable strategy by Ms. Cheney, a tough and hawkish conservative who throughout her career has worked to avoid being viewed through the lens of gender…

The Twitter attack by the House Republican Conference on Ms. Matthews, who works as a House Republican aide, was quickly deleted. But Mr. Trump’s targeting of her and Ms. Hutchinson was in line with how the former president has often publicly treated women who challenge him, criticizing them in personal terms intended to call into question their credibility, sanity and self-worth.

Mr. Trump’s allies like to describe him as an equal-opportunity counterpuncher who would attack anyone who crossed him. But over the years, he has singled out female antagonists with particular viciousness, including the television personalities Mika Brzezinski and Megyn Kelly, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Mary T. Barra, the chief executive of General Motors. His allies, many of them seeking his approval, have mimicked his behavior.