The launch this week of public hearings on last year’s deadly attack on the US Capitol marks a key phase for the investigation, Congress and the country. And as both sides look forward to the findings of the elected committee – and the public’s reaction to them – few have more of a threat than Liz Cheney.
The Wyoming Republican has not only taken on the role of a leading figure in the January 6, 2021, extensive congressional Congressional riot survey, she has also taken on the face of the Republican Anti-Trump Movement in the high-stakes gambling process. she is both a pariah at her conference and a hero to those national Republicans who are struggling to steer the party away from former President Trump.
Who ultimately wins the battle for the Republican Party’s soul – Trump loyalists or Trump critics – remains to be seen. But Cheney is using his seat on the committee to try to tip the scales of this internal enmity, sternly warning that Republicans who continue to indulge in Trump’s lies about “stolen” elections threaten more than just the death of the Republican Party. , but also the collapse of American democracy as a whole.
“We are absolutely at a time when we have to decide whether to put our love for this country above partisanship,” Cheney told CBS News on Sunday. “And for me, there’s just no gray area in this matter.”
The short-term cost of Cheney’s challenge is significant.
She was ousted by the Republican leadership four months after the uprising, replaced by another woman MP, Eliza Stefanik (RN.Y.), who is less conservative but also tends to reinforce baseless allegations of “irregularities.” affecting the outcome of the election – a litmus test for party brass.
Cheney’s disagreement also posed a major challenge, jeopardizing her once-safe seat as a lone member of the Wyoming House of Representatives, a dark red state where Cheney’s name has enormous power. In contrast, the only other Republican on the Jan. 6 committee, Adam Kinzinger (Illinois), was hurt by the redistribution of the cycle and is not seeking re-election.
However, the 55-year-old Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, did not apologize, accusing her Republican critics of putting their loyalty to Trump instead of swearing an oath to the Constitution.
“We now have too many people in the Republican Party who are not taking their responsibilities seriously and who have sworn allegiance to Donald Trump,” she told CBS. “I mean, it’s fundamentally the opposite – it’s contrary to everything conservatives believe – to embrace a cult of personality.”
Established by a vote in the House of Representatives last June, the elected committee interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses to the January 6 attack, when thousands of Trump supporters, aroused by Trump’s false allegations of stolen elections, marched to the Capitol in a bid to block Congress. your defeat. Seven people died in connection with the rebels, and more than 150 police officers were injured in sparring with the rebels.
The committee’s meetings are held almost exclusively behind closed doors, but that will change on Thursday when the committee meets for prime-time hearings to present its findings.
The challenge for its members is to tell a compelling story that can influence public sentiment. This is a high bar in a country as polarized as the United States. And Fox News raised it even higher this week by announcing that it would not broadcast the hearing live, as other networks intend to do.
“We just have an absolute mountain of evidence of what happened. And our problem is really distilling the basics of all these events to share with people, “said Jamie Ruskin (D-Md.), One of the investigators, in an interview with the Washington Post Live on Monday.
The members of the commission have work ahead of them if they hope to achieve any public breakthrough. A May poll by the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that while 52 percent said it was important to learn more about the attack, 48 percent said it was time to “move forward.”
A NBC News poll released on Monday found that less than half of respondents – 45 percent – believe Trump is responsible for the attack, up from 52 percent in January 2021.
Cheney, as the committee’s deputy chairman, is at the center of the commission’s efforts to provide the type of prime-time story that could divert those numbers in Trump’s favor. She is also in a place where her future in politics may depend on her success. Trump took 70 percent of the vote in Wyoming in 2020.
Cheney’s high profile and insoluble message angered the 45th president, who visited Wyoming last month to campaign for Cheney’s main opponent. The Capitol attack was on his mind.
“As one of the leading proponents of the fraud for the uprising, Liz Cheney ran a grotesquely false, fabricated, hysterical, guerrilla story,” Trump told a crowd in Casper ahead of the Aug. 16 primary.
Trump’s allies in the Republican Party in Congress reinforced that message, calling the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack a guerrilla witch hunt designed solely to inflict political damage on Trump and Republicans.
Representative Jim Jordan (Ohio), in an article that only addresses Democrats’ hearing goals, said they had “a sinister goal.” [of] convincing Americans that the Conservatives were to blame for the events of that day.
“The real goal of the commission, and what it hopes to achieve with its unprecedented calls and hearings in a bright light, is to reject conservatism and all those who uphold conservative values,” Jordan wrote in The Federalist.
“Democrats want to use the January 6 violence to condemn conservative voices and delegitimize conservative ideals. They even spoke – condescendingly, of course – of treating conservatives as members of a “cult” that should be deprogrammed.
Although Republicans generally seek to oust Cheney and Kinsinger, in many cases it is the Democrats in the Jan. 6 panel who stand up for them, something Ruskin called in April “the completely cannibalistic process of denigrating and punishing Republicans just because they are not.” agree with orthodoxy, the dogma transmitted by Donald Trump. “
“Because if you don’t follow what Donald Trump says, if you don’t act like a robot or a member of a religious cult, they will attack you, denigrate you, condemn you,” Ruskin said in a vote for the House of Representatives. formally referred two former Trump aides to the Justice Department for charges after they opposed the commission’s subpoenas.
“These people, Mr Kinzinger, Mrs Cheney, are constitutional heroes,” he said.
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But Cheney has not lost all confidence in the party.
“I think she would be a great speaker,” Tom Rice (SC), one of 10 Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted to impeach Trump after the riots, told ABC News on Sunday.
“I think she’s a real Republican. I think she is very conservative. And I think she’s a fearless leader. “
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