Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) emphasized on Saturday that “any interaction” former President Trump has with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol will be “under oath and subject to penalties of perjury.”
Cheney, who serves as the vice chair of the committee, has remained tight-lipped about many aspects of the panel’s investigation into the Jan. 6 riot, as have her fellow committee members.
In a Saturday interview with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith, Cheney declined to specifically say whether the panel would like to hear from the former president, instead noting that if it does he will be required to tell the truth.
Cheney, a prominent Trump critic, did not otherwise hold back in speaking against the former president, however, calling him “fundamentally destructive” for the Republican Party. The congresswoman pointed to responses from her fellow members of the GOP to presidential records being recovered from the former president's Mar-a-Lago home as the latest example.
“You look at how many senior Republicans are going through contortions to try to defend the fact that the former president had stored in a desk drawer apparently, in an unsecure storage room, in a resort … documents that had the highest classification markings,” Cheney told Smith at the Tribune’s annual festival.
Despite her views on the former president, Cheney told Smith she does not regret voting against Trump’s first impeachment based on the evidence. She also noted that those proceedings have informed her current work on the Jan. 6 Committee.
“They would have had more Republican votes if they had enforced their subpoenas, and that is certainly a lesson that we have taken into [the] Jan. 6 Select Committee’s work,” Cheney said.
The Jan. 6 Committee has taken a strong stance on enforcing its subpoenas, referring several Trump allies for criminal contempt of Congress.
Cheney said she would "do everything I can" to ensure Trump is not the Republican nominee for president in 2024.
"And if he is the nominee," she added, "I won’t be a Republican.”
Representative Peter Meijer lost his Michigan primary battle against John Gibbs Tuesday, leading former President Donald Trump to celebrate the defeat of yet another Republican who voted in favor of his impeachment.
Meijer, who voted in favor of establishing a bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol insurrection and said prior to the primary that he does “not for a second” regret his impeachment vote, conceded to Gibbs early Wednesday morning.
Gibbs, an official who served within the Trump administration, had the backing of the former President and received a congratulatory phone call following the victory.
“I’ll see you soon,” Trump told him. “I’m very proud of you. That’s a great job.”
John Gibbs took a call early Wednesday, Aug. 3, from former President Donald Trump congratulating him on his victory over Congressman Peter Meijer in the GOP primary.
“I’ll see you soon,” Trump said. “I’m very proud of you. That’s a great job.” pic.twitter.com/QnCiqYkOOV
Gibbs had described the primary defeat of Peter Meijer as “a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party,” noting that the Republican congressman “betrayed his voters” by voting in favor of impeachment just days after being sworn into Congress.
Nobody could have been happier about the result than Trump.
“Fantastic night in Michigan! Tudor Dixon will be a great Governor. John Gibbs WON with a big surge in the end,” he wrote on his Truth Social media platform. “Not a good time for Impeachers – 7 down, 3 to go!”
Dixon also earned an endorsement from the former President and will now face Democrat incumbent Gretchen Whitmer in the gubernatorial race in Michigan following her primary win.
Trump-endorsed Tudor Dixon has won the Republican primary for Michigan governor.
“Endorsements don’t get any more powerful or conclusive than the Endorsements of last night,” Trump wrote in another post. “I wonder if anyone will write or report that? Just asking?”
Meijer joins Representatives Tom Rice, who was soundly defeated in the Republican primary for South Carolina’s 7th District in June, and Adam Kinzinger (IL), Anthony Gonzalez (OH), Fred Upton (MI), and John Katko (NY), who all decided to flee Congress after voting to impeach Trump, as six of the “7 down” referenced by the former President.
Trump may be counting on Liz Cheney’s (WY) ouster as well, as she trails her opponent by 22-points in a primary scheduled less than two weeks away.
“Friday’s Casper Star-Tribune/Mason-Dixon poll revealed Hageman leads Cheney by 22 points (52 to 30 percent). Eleven percent are undecided. According to previous polling, Hageman is leading in the polls by 28 and 30 points.” https://t.co/abpGolgKO7
While the rate of impeachment voters being ousted from Congress is fairly high, it hasn’t been perfect.
Representative David Valadao (R-CA) fended off a primary challenge in June, though Trump did not endorse any candidate in the race.
Meanwhile, Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) and Dan Newhouse (R-WA) managed to earn a place amongst the top two in their district’s crowded fields, besting their Trump-backed opponents and meaning they will survive and advance to the general election.
U.S. Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse were leading their pro-Trump challengers despite backlash over their votes to impeach the former president. https://t.co/7LpjKt0o8A
Still, as Fox News reports, Tuesday’s results show Trump’s “immense grip over the Republican Party remains firm.”
They cite as further evidence victories by Blake Masters, who won the GOP Arizona Senate primary, and Mark Finchem, who won the Republican nomination for Arizona Secretary of State.
Masters moves on to Democratic Senator Mark Kelly in November in a key battleground state race that may determine if Republicans are able to win back the Senate majority.
Kari Lake, the Trump-backed former TV news anchor leads her primary for Governor of Arizona, though the results are still too close to call.
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Three Republican lawmakers who voted in favor of impeaching Donald Trump for his alleged role in the January 6th riot at the Capitol will face primary challenges on Tuesday.
Representatives Peter Meijer (R-MI), Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), and Dan Newhouse (R-WA), will all be fighting for their political lives against primary opponents who have the backing of the former President.
Meijer, who voted in favor of establishing a bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol insurrection and said he doesn’t regret his impeachment vote, “Not for a second,” will face off against Trump-endorsed John Gibbs in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District.
“This is a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party,” Gibbs told the Washington Post. “What’s happening in my race is similar to what’s going on in the rest of the country. People feel the party isn’t representing what they want.”
On August 2nd, we can defeat 3 Republicans, who voted to impeach President Trump:
Republicans Who Voted to Impeach Trump Face Difficult Primaries
Beutler and Newhouse, who also voted to impeach Trump, will be facing difficult primaries as well Tuesday. The two, like Meijer, voted in favor of establishing an independent commission to investigate the January 6 riot at the Capitol.
Beutler will be going up against several opponents in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District primary, including Army Special Forces veteran Joe Kent who received the endorsement of the former President.
Kent claims momentum in his race because “people are still furious” that she voted to impeach Trump.
The Republican establishment wants 22’ to be a referendum against America 1st, they want controlled weak republicans who vote as they are told.
In the last week 2.5 million has been spent against me b/c I’m leading in the polls & Beutler might not make the top 2.
Newhouse meanwhile, said his impeachment vote was due to Trump’s “inaction” during the riot and added that “our country needed a leader, and President Trump failed to fulfill his oath of office.”
He faces former police chief Loren Culp in Washington’s 4th Congressional District primary. Culp also received an endorsement from the likely 2024 Republican presidential nominee. The two will be facing six other nominees (5 Republicans and 1 Democrat).
“Having the endorsement of President Trump is huge,” Culp said.
The media likes to only point to Newhouse voting to impeach President Trump for the reason I’m running against him. They ignore his voting with Democrats 40-50% of the time, funding planned parenthood to murder babies, voting for red flag laws etc. At his core he is a D.
If history is any indicator, those Republicans who voted to impeach President Trump are going to struggle in their respective primaries.
Just over one month ago, Representative Tom Rice was soundly defeated in the Republican primary for South Carolina’s 7th District. Rice lost to Russell Fry, the South Carolina State House’s majority whip who earned Trump’s endorsement, doubling up his votes.
U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Donald Trump over the Jan. 6 insurrection, has been ousted from Congress in his South Carolina GOP primary. Rice was defeated by state Rep. Russell Fry, who was backed by Trump. https://t.co/JXYD2GA1R0pic.twitter.com/m7dVFme649
Another impeacher, Wyoming’s Liz Cheney, is trailing her primary opponent, Harriet Hageman, a Wyoming attorney who has the backing of Trump, by a whopping 22 percentage points.
Representative Liz Cheney, the rabid anti-Trump vice chair of the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot, says she hasn’t made a decision on running for president in 2024 but would do so “down the road.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper asked the Wyoming congresswoman if she was “willing to run for President to try and stop” former President Donald Trump.
“At this point, I have not made a decision about 2024,” Cheney replied. “I’ll make a decision on 2024 down the road.”
Cheney suggests she is more focused on her work with the select committee, something she believes is “the single most important thing I’ve ever done professionally.”
January 6 Committee Vice Chair @Liz_Cheney tells @jaketapper she hasn’t made a decision yet about running in 2024 to stop former President Trump but warns that the United States “stands on the edge of an abyss.” https://t.co/mFpqb2oylx
The entire segment discussing Liz Cheney’s 2024 prospects is unintentionally amusing. Sure, the dueling sad eyes battle – meant to convey just how serious they both are between Tapper and Cheney – is hilarious.
But the concept that Cheney would run for President after being ousted from her leadership position by her own party due to her antics, and now facing a huge polling deficit in the upcoming primary for Wyoming’s lone U.S. House seat in three weeks, is equally outrageous.
WOW — One month before the Wyoming Republican Primary, Harriet Hageman holds a 22 point lead over Liz Cheney
She’s about to get slaughtered at the ballot box for her congressional seat but she’ll somehow use that to catapult into the White House in 2024?
Cheney might get a handful of Democrat voters dismayed with their own party and unwilling to switch sides but it’s not going to be enough to even make a dent.
She’s been banking on that segment of the vote in Wyoming, The Political Insider has previously reported. But trailing by 22% seems to indicate it’s not nearly enough to propel her to victory.
Democrats don’t care about the anti-Trumpers – Cheney and Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) – except to create the illusion that their pursuit of the January 6 investigation is ‘bipartisan.’
Kinzinger had to learn that the hard way as well when announcing his retirement after Illinois Democrats used redrawn district lines to eliminate him from contention, despite his time serving as their puppet for the J6 committee.
An Associated Press report from March indicates that both Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are sending out feelers regarding a White House run in 2024.
Kinzinger, they write, is “considering a rough timeline for a potential presidential announcement,” while associates of Cheney are “openly talking up her White House prospects.”
With the 2024 contest almost in view, the question is no longer whether one of Trump’s prominent Republican critics will run, but how many will mount a campaign and how soon they will announce.https://t.co/FsO1MWYa1Y
“Their goal would not necessarily be to win the presidency,” the AP added. “Above all, they want to hinder Trump’s return to the White House.”
A noble cause… in their own minds.
The Political Insider reported back in April that Cheney refused to rule out a future run for President of the United States when asked.
“I’m not ruling anything in or out — ever is a long time,” she said.
Trump, who just overwhelmingly won a straw poll conducted by the conservative student activist group Turning Point USA on who they’d like to see represent the GOP in 2024, has little to worry about should Cheney mount a campaign.
Cheney’s most prolific voices of support appear to be Democrats on the select committee, Kinzinger, and noted Republican squishes John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and George W. Bush.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) didn't make any new friends in the GOP with her star turn bashing former President Trump in prime time on Thursday night. It doesn't bother her a bit.
Cheney, a dynastic figure who sits in the House seat once held by her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, used her high perch on the Jan. 6 select committee to accuse Trump of abusing the powers of the presidency to orchestrate nothing short of an attempted coup — explosive charges that have reinforced her status as Public Enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the MAGA faithful.
The much-watched hearing has further complicated Cheney’s path to reelection in deep-red Wyoming, a Trump stronghold where her primary opponent has the energetic backing of the 45th president, who is actively stumping against the mutinous incumbent.
But as Cheney's attacks on Trump have grown only louder, it's increasingly clear that she's motivated by something other than securing her future in the lower chamber. Whether that thing is a self-sacrificing desire to save the country's democratic traditions from the former president or an egomaniacal effort to advance her own fame and political powers largely depends on the perspective of her fans and critics.
What is not in question is that Cheney has staked her legacy on her relentless anti-Trump activism — a reputation that will become only more deeply entrenched as the select committee airs its investigative findings in a long series of public hearings that will dominate discussion in Washington through the rest of the month.
“President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney, the vice chairwoman of the select committee, said during the panel’s prime-time hearing Thursday night.
For the like-minded Trump critics, Cheney is an enormous asset to the investigation, offering the committee not only a good dose of bipartisan legitimacy, but also a seasoned legal mind who knows the ins and outs of the GOP conference and its complicated dealings with the former president.
“She’s an awesome lawyer, … [and] she was the chair of the House Republican Conference,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former professor of constitutional law who also sits on the investigative panel. “So she obviously knows the terrain better than anyone else on the committee.”
To Trump’s allies on and off of Capitol Hill, however, Cheney is simply a traitor to the party — a “Pelosi Republican” who’s been all but disowned as GOP leaders try to tap Trump’s popularity in their effort to flip control of the House in November’s midterm elections.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who wants to take the speakership next year, said this week that the responsibility for the Jan. 6 falls on “everybody in the country.”
In one sense, Cheney is an unlikely figure to assume the role of Republican iconoclast. Her family ranks among the most powerful GOP dynasties of the last half century, and her father's unique brand of conservatism — combined with his no-apologies approach to power-policymaking — made him a favorite with the Republican base.
In a similar vein, Liz Cheney’s staunch conservative positions — including strong attacks on gay marriage during an early campaign — made her a villain in the eyes of Democrats nationwide, but helped propel her quickly into the leadership ranks once she arrived on Capitol Hill in 2017.
In another sense, however, Cheney is the natural fit to play Trump's foil.
Trump had devoted much of his successful 2016 campaign bashing the overseas entanglements of the Bush-Cheney administration, most notably the 2003 decision to launch the Iraq War, which was championed by the elder Cheney. After taking the White House, Trump continued those attacks on the old Republican guard that had pushed an aggressively interventionist foreign policy, a group that included both of the Cheneys.
Although Cheney had opposed Trump’s first impeachment, she was furious with his actions surrounding the attack on the Capitol, where a violent mob of Trump supporters tried to overturn his election defeat. More than 150 police officers were injured in the rampage.
Cheney was one of just 10 Republicans to support Trump’s impeachment following the riot, and she’s jumped headfirst into her role investigating the tragedy. On Thursday, she used the platform of the televised hearing to warn those Republicans still backing Trump that history won’t treat them kindly.
“Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain,” she said.
Supporters of the far-reaching investigation note the significance of having a Republican of Cheney’s stature joining the probe.
“It's important, because like she said, this is not about political parties, or your political views. It's about finding out the truth,” U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell said following the hearing. “And from what the committee laid out today, it seems like there's a lot more that needs to be done.”
But Cheney’s recalcitrance has come with political costs.
Last year, after Cheney refused to stop criticizing Trump for his role in the Capitol riot, the GOP conference voted overwhelmingly to boot her out of leadership, replacing her with a Trump loyalist, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who has embraced the former president's lies about a stolen election.
More recently, the Republican National Committee voted to condemn Cheney — along with the only other Republican on the select committee, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) — for their willingness to join Democrats in the Jan. 6 investigation. That decision, the Republican National Committee charged, “has been destructive to the institution of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Republican Party and our republic.”
In the wake of Thursday’s select committee hearing, the attacks on Cheney from Trump’s allies have grown only more pronounced. During the hearing, Tucker Carlson, the wildly popular Fox News pundit, characterized Cheney as “the Iraq War lady” who’s now “lecturing us about honor and truth.”
Carlson’s guest was Joe Kent, a Trump supporter from Washington state who’s launched a primary challenge against Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.), who also supported Trump’s second impeachment. He, too, had some sharp words for the Wyoming Republican.
“It's absolutely absurd and insulting,” Kent said of Cheney’s attacks on Trump’s defenders. “She thinks that we can't go back and look at her record that she has been lying to the American people basically for her entire career and profiting off of it, but also she has to bring up this whole, ‘Oh it must be a big Trump thing.’”
Kent said the Capitol rioters were in Washington on Jan. 6 not because of anything Trump did or said, but because “a vast majority” of Americans “did not feel like their voices were heard at the election box, and therefore things started to get a little bit dicey.”
In the face of such attacks, Cheney has found a new group of allies: Democrats, who have always opposed her conservative policy prescriptions, but are now cheering her on as she takes on a shared adversary in Trump.
“Liz Cheney and I do not agree on almost probably 80 percent of the contentious issues that come up, give or take 10 points,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters this week. “But what she is standing up for is the truth.”
“That's why she was removed as the leader of the Republican Party,” he continued. “Because the Republican Party didn't want to hear the truth."
The biggest moment of the Jan. 6 House Select Committee’s existence is about to arrive.
On Thursday evening, the panel will hold the first of its televised hearings. The event will take place in prime time and be broadcast by almost every major network and news channel.
For some, it will be the most dramatic congressional investigation since the Watergate hearings a half-century ago.
Others — committed supporters of former President Trump, in particular — will likely tune out the hearings.
Here are five big questions that have yet to be answered.
What will we learn that’s new about Trump?
Democrats are promising explosive revelations about the former president’s role in fomenting the attack on the Capitol.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) on Tuesday promised in a CNN interview, “We’re going to see how much Trump was involved. Trump ran this show. He ran it from the time he lost the election in November, and he did it with his son, or sons, and all of his henchmen up there.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the committee, told The Washington Post in a Monday interview that the panel had “found evidence about a lot more than incitement here.”
Raskin added, “I think that Donald Trump and the White House were at the center of these events. That’s the only way of really making sense of them all.”
Ironically, the main difficulty Democrats may face in making the case against Trump is the vast amount that is already known.
Trump was, after all, impeached by the House only one week after the insurrection, becoming the only president in history to be impeached on two separate occasions.
At a rally at the Ellipse near the White House, immediately before the assault on the Capitol, he told supporters, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” And he also told them that President Biden, if certified as the election’s winner, would be an illegitimate president.
There have also been subsequent media leaks about other things the panel may have uncovered — including, recently, the suggestion that Trump was sympathetic to the demands of some of his supporters to “hang Mike Pence,” then the sitting vice president.
There could be more shocking evidence to come. But the knowledge already in existence sets a high bar.
Can the panel incriminate the Republican Party more broadly?
The committee famously features just two Republicans — Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), who serves as vice chair, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) — both of whom are vigorous Trump critics.
That leaves the wider GOP in the panel’s crosshairs, especially if it can pin culpability for specific misdeeds on other members of the party.
No fewer than 147 Republican members of Congress voted to invalidate the election results in some shape or form on the evening of the insurrection, with debris still littering the Capitol’s hallways.
Yet, at that time, senior members of the GOP were willing to acknowledge Trump’s culpability.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in February 2021 said on the Senate floor that Trump was “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.” In a recorded call with colleagues later obtained by two reporters for The New York Times, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called Trump’s actions “atrocious and totally wrong.”
But McConnell voted to acquit Trump on the impeachment charge in the Senate and McCarthy made his peace much more publicly, traveling to Mar-a-Lago to meet Trump. Last week, Trump endorsed McCarthy for reelection to the House.
The GOP would far rather talk about the issues bedeviling Biden than Jan. 6.
But if the committee can make a compelling case with fresh and additional evidence, Republicans may have little choice.
Can the Democrats put on a show?
For good or for bad, the theater of politics matters.
So, one question will be how compelling Democrats can make the hearings.
The first hearing is likely to be the most important of all, much as the first presidential debate in a series tends also to be the most vital.
All three major broadcast networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, have said they will shelve their regular programming and replace it with live coverage of the Thursday hearing. So too have CNN and MSNBC. Controversially, Fox News will not air the hearing live, instead confining such coverage to Fox Business.
Conservatives have taken umbrage at the decision by the committee to turn to a former president of ABC News, James Goldston, to help make Thursday’s presentation as compelling as possible.
Axios, which first reported Goldston’s involvement, wrote that he was “busily producing” the hearing “as if it were a blockbuster investigative special.”
We’re about to see the results.
Do the hearings change the political agenda?
There is little doubt that Thursday’s hearing will eclipse almost all the political news out of Washington. For that night at least, it will be the only show in town.
But how long will that effect last?
Trump allies have promised “counterprogramming” to push back on the narrative being advanced by the committee.
House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) is kicking off that effort Wednesday, at a morning news conference with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and ardent Trump allies Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Stefanik told Fox News that she and her colleagues were “pushing back against lame-duck Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi’s sham political witch hunt.”
More broadly, the White House has spent months on the defensive, embattled by a host of problems including inflation, high gas prices, an infant formula shortage and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The hearings will give Democrats a chance to put the GOP on the back foot — but for how long?
Can the panel shift public opinion?
Politically, this is the biggest question of all.
Many independent experts, and even some liberals, aren’t at all sure the answer is yes.
For all kinds of reasons, opinions around Jan. 6 have calcified.
While Democrats see Trump’s culpability as self-evident, many Republicans seem willing to dismiss anything the panel uncovers.
Meanwhile, a politically segmented media environment combines with the bias-reinforcing dynamics of social media to deepen those divisions.
That doesn’t mean the committee is wasting its time. New evidence regarding Jan. 6 is important by its nature.
The House committee probing the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection will start holding public hearings Thursday, looking to draw national attention to witness testimony and evidence gathered during nearly a year of investigating.
The committee is made up of nine House members — seven Democrats and two Republicans. It formed last summer, about six months after the U.S. Capitol riot, to investigate the attack and events and communications around it.
After an attempt to form a bipartisan commission with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) failed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) moved forward in appointing the entire committee.
Here are the members serving on the House Jan. 6 committee and some of their comments on the panel's work thus far.
Bennie Thompson
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) serves as chairman of the committee. Thompson has led the committee since its inception. He has said there is “no question” that the Jan. 6 insurrection was a premeditated attack based on the evidence the committee has received.
He has called his role leading the committee “ironic” given his background as a Black man from “one of the most racist states.”
Liz Cheney
Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) serves as the vice chairwoman and is one of two Republican members on the committee. Thompson said in September that her appointment underscores the “bipartisan nature” of the committee’s work.
But Cheney has faced sharp criticism as a result of her decision to participate in the committee’s investigation and her rebukes of former President Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. House Republicans voted to remove Cheney as conference chairwoman last May, and she is now facing a Trump-endorsed challenger for her primary in August.
Cheney said last month hat Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results is a "threat we have never faced before."
Adam Kinzinger
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), the other Republican serving on the committee, has also faced pushback after he voted to impeach Trump for his role in inciting the Capitol insurrection and joined the Jan. 6 committee. Kinzinger announced in October that he would not seek reelection to his seat, ending a 12-year career in the House. He has remained one of the most vocal GOP critics of Trump.
Kinzinger was not originally a member of the committee, but Pelosi appointed him after McCarthy pulled his picks from consideration.
McCarthy denied blaming Trump for the insurrection immediately following the attack, but tapes later revealed that he did, which Kinzinger said showed that Republican leaders think their voters are “dumb.”
Pete Aguilar
Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), the vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, argued in March in favor of the Justice Department bringing contempt charges against witnesses who have refused to cooperate despite subpoenas from the committee.
The Justice Department has brought charges for contempt of Congress against former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon and former trade adviser Peter Navarro but has not charged his former chief of staff Mark Meadows or Dan Scavino, his former deputy chief of staff for communications, who have also been subpoenaed by the committee.
Zoe Lofgren
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, said in March on PBS’s “NewsHour” that what unfolded during the riot was a more serious threat to American democracy than Watergate. In April, she said the members of the House Jan. 6 committee are “not afraid” to release any information or call any witness to testify.
The committee has issued subpoenas for a range of witnesses, including Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Scott Perry (R-Pa.) and Kimberly Guilfoyle, the girlfriend of Donald Trump Jr. who spoke at the Jan. 6 rally at the Ellipse near the White House. Multiple family members have voluntarily cooperated, including the former president's daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner.
The committee has not said who will testify during its upcoming slate of eight hearings.
Elaine Luria
Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) said in an interview in late March that Kushner’s interview with the committee was “really valuable” to the investigation.
Luria also called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to act on the contempt charges the committee has recommended.
“Attorney General Garland, do your job so we can do ours,” she said at a meeting where the committee forwarded its recommendation for charges against Scavino and Navarro.
Stephanie Murphy
Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) said in February that the committee needs to be aware of the impact its actions could have moving forward.
“The people who were involved were at all levels of government — local, state and federal — and the unprecedented nature of the event has led us to be very careful about how we proceed in the investigation because we are setting precedents,” Murphy told The Hill at the time.
“But we will be thorough in how we get all the information,” she added.
Jamie Raskin
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who led the House impeachment case against Trump in January, has been vocal about the Jan. 6 committee’s findings and what the American people will learn from the public hearings.
He said Monday that the committee members have found evidence on Trump that is “a lot more than incitement.” Trump was impeached following the insurrection for incitement, but the Senate did not reach the requisite two-thirds majority vote needed to convict him.
Raskin told Washington Post Live on Tuesday that the hearing this week will “tell a story of a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”
Adam Schiff
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) emphasized on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the hearing this week will be the first time there will be a “comprehensive narrative” on the events surrounding the insurrection.
He said “a number of bombshells” have already been released during the committee’s investigation but that there is more to be revealed. Schiff is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which was at the center of the investigation in Trump's first impeachment for allegedly soliciting foreign help in an election.
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is preparing for a crucial week as it prepares to finally share with the public the fruits of its months-long investigation into the riot in prime time on Thursday.
The 8 p.m. hearing kicking off a series of meetings shows the committee is eager to reach a broad segment of Americans and relay the extent to which democracy itself was at stake that day.
“The goal here is to construct this narrative,” said Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow in governance studies with Brookings.
“What they want to do is go through the countless depositions that they've taken and other evidence that they gathered and figure out a way to try and convey a story to the public.”
The challenge is making a captivating case for a wide audience, particularly those who feel they already know what happened that day or who are ready to move on from the attack.
According to polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the country is nearly evenly divided on how much it wants to reflect on the day.
While 52 percent said it’s important to learn more about what happened, 48 percent said it was “time to move on.” The divide is almost entirely partisan.
“I do think that the committee will have difficulties in communicating messages because of the kind of segregated information environment in which a lot of the American public exists,” Ryan Goodman, co-director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, told The Hill.
“That said, I do think the visual of a solemn public hearing and live testimony plus, in all likelihood video material, could focus attention in a way [for] the members of the American public are otherwise not thinking about these issues.”
Putting the hearing in prime-time shows the committee doesn’t want to just reach those who already view the attack as a grievous assault on democracy. It wants to reach independents and even conservatives who have heard GOP leaders brand the panel as a partisan witch hunt.
Jesse Rhodes, a political science professor who helped craft the UMass poll, said even with the sharp partisan divide, there are those who don’t have strong feelings about the attack.
“We're finding in the poll that about 19 percent of people are purely independent. And then there's another 9 percent who lean Democratic and another 8 percent lean Republican. So there is a little bit of mushiness in the middle. And those people potentially can be shifted,” he said, noting that just one-third of Americans strongly identify as conservative.
“If there really is damning evidence of long-term planning, involvement in collusion by the president or his top advisers … that does have the potential to move some people.”
Rhodes and others have warned the committee must be careful in how it frames such messaging.
“I think the most important [thing] might be this is not perceived as a Trump versus Biden frame, which the first impeachment hearing pretty much was, but rather it imparts a Trump versus Pence framework. I think that there are many people that are concerned about the direct threat to Mike Pence that occurred on Jan. 6,” Goodman said.
“I think that captures attention in a very different way. It’s not as political or partisan.”
There are signs the committee could be leaning in that direction. Multiple outlets reported the panel has been in discussions about inviting Pence’s legal advisers and chief of staff to testify.
“As soon as this is perceived as or appears to be a strictly partisan affair and an attack on the Republican Party as an institution, then you're going to get a lot of resistance or skepticism,” Rhodes said.
“To the degree that the messages can be about upholding and maintaining institutions and values that benefit people, regardless of party, the more you will get at least a willingness to hear some of these concerns.”
The panel’s makeup could help it.
Republicans in the House objected during the two committee impeachment proceedings on Trump, but the two Republicans on the Jan. 6 panel agree with its objectives.
“Each hearing is going to be different than I think a lot of what we're used to seeing because everyone is rowing in the same direction. So you have the Democrats and you have [Rep. Liz] Cheney [R-Wyo.] and [Rep. Adam] Kinzinger [R-Ill.], so the committee is bipartisan, but they are all in pursuit of a shared goal in a way that just is not true of other recent high profile investigations, whether it be the Trump impeachment or Benghazi,” Reynolds said.
“That’s going to make for a serious exposition of the facts that's just going to feel different than what we’ve gotten used to.”
Goodman said the absence of Republicans opposed to the committee’s mission will not just change the tone but even the way in which information is presented.
“I do not think that the hearings are going to be anything like the circus that has existed in hearings — and the impeachment hearings — in that past in which some members of Congress were simply playing to kind of a right-wing media. And so this will be a more solemn hearing which is going to be truth seeking, [that’s] the way in which I see it. And I don't think that hearings are going to be a source of disinformation. I think they're going to be a source of information,” he said.
The committee has not yet announced who will testify at the first hearing, but it has pledged to release never before seen footage from Jan. 6.
“The committee will present previously unseen material documenting January 6th, receive witness testimony, preview additional hearings, and provide the American people a summary of its findings about the coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the transfer of power,” it said in a Thursday statement.
It’s not clear what type of footage the committee plans to present at the hearing.
While in the past it’s relied on visceral imagery — including an officer being smashed by rioters in a doorway and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) barely escaping as the mob closed in on the Senate chamber — even new footage of the attack may seem repetitive to those who watched it unfold live on television.
But Goodman said video recordings from some of the committee’s more than 1,000 depositions could be captivating for the public.
Rhodes also said new information will be key, especially to break through in an unusually busy summer news cycle.
“It can be a challenge to get people to refocus on events that occurred in the past, especially when there's going to be a lot of elite disagreement between Democrats and Republicans about what happened and who was involved in with what culpability,” he said. “I think that's a real challenge even though it sounds like the committee is going to have a lot of really juicy and damning information to share.”
“They may be able to bring attention especially if they come out with some really shocking new revelations but it is going to be a challenge to break through everything that's going on right now.”
Liz Cheney officially filed for re-election and was promptly slapped with a poll showing her trailing her primary opponent by 30 percentage points.
Cheney announced on Thursday that she was seeking a fourth two-year term representing Wyoming’s at-large House seat.
“In Wyoming, we know what it means to ride for the brand. We live in the greatest nation God has ever created, and our brand is the U.S. Constitution,” she tweeted with an accompanying video announcement.
Added Cheney, “I’m running for re-election and asking for your vote because this is a fight we must win.”
She’s declaring concern for Wyoming when everyone has watched her on a 24/7 rampage against a man who’s no longer in office. Sorry, Liz, but your brand is Trump. Not the Constitution.
In Wyoming, we know what it means to ride for the brand. We live in the greatest nation God has ever created, and our brand is the U.S. Constitution.
I’m running for re-election and asking for your vote because this is a fight we must win. https://t.co/iPv8zYzseD
Liz Cheney’s Re-Election Bid Takes a Hit Right Out of the Gate
Cheney’s main challenger in the primary, to be held in mid-August, is Harriet Hageman, a Wyoming attorney who has the backing of former President Donald Trump.
A new poll from the Club For Growth, a conservative organization opposing Cheney, shows her down a whopping 30 points to Hageman, with just 6% undecided.
NEW: A @club4growth poll of #WYAL shows Rep Liz Cheney (R) down 30 points to the Trump-backed Harriet Hageman (R) in the Aug 16 primary
The group hasn’t formally endorsed Hageman as Trump has.
Despite their conservative background, the poll according to Politico paints “the starkest illustration yet of the political peril Cheney faces this year.”
The outlet also states that the survey “is consistent with other data out of Wyoming in the last year.”
Cheney’s favorability ratings in another recent poll spell trouble for the anti-Trump Republican as well.
As a nice consolation prize for this devastating re-election news, Liz Cheney was recently awarded the John F. Kennedy Library Profile in Courage Award and praised by CNN for her speech.
During her oration, she ran down what makes her a terrific lawmaker and what she could do for her constituents in Wyoming.
Just kidding – she attacked Trump.
“This sacred obligation to defend the peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president but one,” she told the adoring crowd.
“Today that role is ours as we face a threat we have never faced before – a former President attempting to unravel our constitutional republic.”
“Will we stand for truth? Will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics? Or will we look away from danger, ignore the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?”
— Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) calls out former President Trump while receiving the JFK Profiles in Courage Award pic.twitter.com/WrCv1khPrW
Of course, the JFK Profile in Courage Award has been relegated to a less-than-prestigious honor over the years.
It rewards people for being anti-Trump or anti-conservative which, in a media landscape dominated by liberals, is actually a pretty easy thing to be.
Mitt Romney won in 2021 for his vote to convict Trump in 2020 in the Presidential Impeachment trial. The category for the award was ‘National Interest Over Party.’
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won the same category in 2019 … for getting re-elected Speaker by pushing Democrat platforms.
Cheney didn’t win because of national interest over party. Nor did Romney, or Pelosi. The common thread is that all three pushed Democrat, anti-Trump rhetoric that elevated their stature in the eyes of the JFK Library.
The silver lining for Cheney? Once she’s ousted by Hageman in the Wyoming Republican primary, she’ll have plenty of time to sit at home and polish her new little award.
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Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) formally launched her reelection bid on Thursday, seeking the Republican nomination for her seat for the fourth time amid rebukes from her own party.
"Some things have to matter," Cheney said in her announcement video. "American freedom, the rule of law, our founding principles, the foundations of our republic matter. What we do in this election in Wyoming matters."
"I'm asking for your vote because this is a fight we must win," she said.
Cheney has drawn the ire of former President Trump and his allies for voting for Trump’s second impeachment and serving as the vice chairwoman of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The committee is seen as illegitimate by a number of her Republican colleagues in the lower chamber.
First elected to the House in 2016, Cheney has faced primary challengers in each of her reelections but has won each previous time with large margins. In this year’s Aug. 16 primary, she will face a challenger, attorney Harriet Hageman, backed by Trump and his allies, who have viewed removing Cheney as a top priority.
Trump is slated to stump for Hageman at a Saturday rally, which will also include video addresses by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who became chairwoman of the House Republican Conference after Cheney was ousted from the role last year. Saturday’s rally will also feature speeches from Hageman, Wyoming Republican Party Chairman Frank Eathorne and two more of Cheney’s House Republican colleagues, Rep. Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.).
Cheney made no direct mention of Hageman or her backers in the video posted Thursday, but she called for voters to “reject the lies” and “toxic politics.”
“When I know something is wrong, I will say so,” Cheney said in the announcement.
“I won't waver or back down. I won't surrender to pressure or intimidation. I know where to draw the line and I know that some things aren't for sale,” she continued.
Cheney has deep ties in Wyoming — her father served as Wyoming’s sole congressman for ten years before becoming the secretary of Defense and later vice president. Cheney highlighted those ties in her announcement video, which included images of her dad and mentions of her family history in Wyoming, which she said dated back to 1852.
“In Wyoming, we know what it means to ride for the brand,” she said. “We live in the greatest nation God has ever created, and our brand is the United States Constitution.”
The Wyoming Republican Party has repeatedly admonished Cheney in recent months.
Among the intense criticism from her own party, Cheney has continued to criticize her fellow GOP lawmakers. Earlier this month, she accused House Republican leadership of enabling “white nationalism, white supremacy and anti-semitism” after a mass shooting in Buffalo that killed 10 people in a racist attack.
Cheney has boasted strong fundraising throughout her campaign, hauling in $2.94 million in the first quarter of 2022. But her influence will come to the test as she faces primary voters in a state Trump won by more than 40 points in 2020.
Fire Meijer
John Gibbs,