Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) chose her words carefully and intentionally while laying out the case for potentially criminally charging Trump for 1/6.
Video of 1/6 Committee Vice-Chair Cheney on CBS’s Face The Nation:
Rep. Liz Cheney makes the case for criminally charging Trump, "Trump is likely again this week to make the same false claims about the election that he knows to be false and the same false claims about the election that he knows caused violence on January 6th." pic.twitter.com/kz0AuW0ZTt
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 2, 2022
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Transcript via CBS’s Face The Nation:
MARGARET BRENNAN: We know Democrats are planning a vigil. We know the former president is planning a news conference. Are you concerned about the country being at risk of political violence this week and in the years ahead?
REP. CHENEY: Look, I think that if- if what he has been saying since he left office is any indication, former President Trump is likely again this week to make the same false claims about the election that he knows to be false and the same false claims about the election that he knows caused violence on Jan 6. I think that it is indeed very concerning, given what we know happened in the lead up to the sixth and what the committee is finding out about the events of that day. But I think that it- it’s not surprising. But again, he knows these claims caused violence and we’ve seen now people who were in the Capitol, people who’ve been arrested because of their activities on that day, they themselves have told us in court filings, they’ve told us on social media, we’ve seen it on videos; that they were here because Donald Trump told them to be here. And so, he’s very- he’s doing this press conference on the sixth. Again, if he makes those same claims, he’s doing it with complete understanding and knowledge of- of what those claims have caused in the past.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve raised in the past the possibility of criminal culpability for the president. Is that the consensus view of the committee?
REP. CHENEY: Look, the committee is obviously going to follow the facts wherever they lead. We’ve made tremendous progress. We have had now- if you just think about, for example, what we know now about what the former president was doing on the 6th while the attack was underway. The committee has firsthand testimony that President Trump was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office, watching on television as the Capitol was assaulted as the violence occurred. We know that that is clearly a supreme dereliction of duty. One of the things that the committee is looking at from the perspective of our legislative purpose is whether we need enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty. But we’ve certainly never seen anything like that as a nation before.
Rep. Cheney Is Arguing That Trump’s Conduct On 1/6 Was Criminal
Rep. Cheney has used the language in a federal statute that makes it a crime to obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding. It is the same statute that has been used to charge 1/6 insurrectionists, and it along with dereliction of duty are both clearly being examined by the committee for a potential Trump criminal referral.
It is easy to see why Trump and the GOP want Liz Cheney gone because she is one of the few Republicans to make a case for criminally charging the former president.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
