Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said President-elect Donald Trump’s assertion she be jailed for her work investigating the Capitol insurrection is yet another effort to undermine “the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”
Cheney was one of two Republican members on the House select committee investigating the origins of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, alongside then-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). She drew Trump’s ire throughout the 2024 campaign, supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ ultimately unsuccessful bid for the White House while lambasting Trump’s role inciting his supporters in hopes of overturning the 2020 presidential race.
Trump told “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired Sunday he believes lawmakers who participated on the select committee should be jailed, claiming to host Kristen Welker they committed a “major crime.”
“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with [Chairman Bennie] Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps. … Honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump said.
The president-elect went on to claim the select committee had “deleted and destroyed evidence” in their investigation, which is false. The committee released a comprehensive, 845-page report that detailed Trump’s extensive work to undermine the results of the 2020 election. It cited many Republicans who worked directly for the then-president and then-Vice President Mike Pence.
Cheney said Sunday that Trump was lying about the panel’s work.
“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” she said in a statement. “He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.”
The former lawmaker went on to call Trump’s efforts “the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history.”
“Donald Trump’s suggestion that members of Congress who later investigated his illegal and unconstitutional actions should be jailed is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic,” she concluded.
Democracy In The Balance
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The Biden White House has reportedly been mulling the idea of preemptive pardons for some on Trump’s list of political enemies. Names discussed reportedly include Cheney; California Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D); special counsel Jack Smith; and Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.