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      Cheney hits back as Pence says January 6 committee has ‘no right’ to testimony

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      Cheney hits back as Pence says January 6 committee has ‘no right’ to testimonyPanel vice-chair issues statement with chair Bennie Thompson after Trump vice-president gives interview to CBS The chair and vice-chair of the January 6 committee hit back after Mike Pence said they had “no right” to his testimony about the Capitol attack, and claimed they presided over a “partisan” investigation.Trump bills himself as only option but Republicans split on 2024 runRead moreTestimony presented to the panel and to the nation in a series of dramatic public hearings was “not partisan”, Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney said. “It was truthful.”Pence was speaking to CBS, to promote a new book in which he sets out his version of events on the day supporters of his president, Donald Trump, attacked Congress, some chanting that Pence should be hanged.Pence previously said he would consider testifying. But to CBS, he said: “Congress has no right to my testimony on separation of powers under the constitution of the United States.“And I believe it will establish a terrible precedent for the Congress to summon a vice-president of the United States to speak about deliberations that took place at the White House.”Trump supporters attacked Congress after he told them to “fight like hell” to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win, in service of the lie that it was the result of electoral fraud. Nine deaths have been linked to the riot, including suicides among law enforcement.Trump was impeached a second time but acquitted when Senate Republicans stayed loyal. On Tuesday, he announced a third consecutive presidential run.Pence is also eyeing a run for the Republican nomination. In doing so he must balance promoting his record as vice-president to Trump, thereby appealing to Trump’s supporters, with distancing himself from a former president whose standing is slipping after Republican disappointment in the midterm elections.Pence said he was “closing the door” on the prospect of testifying.“But I must say again, the partisan nature of the January 6 committee has been a disappointment to me. It seemed to me in the beginning, there was an opportunity to examine every aspect of what happened on January 6, and to do so more in the spirit of the 9/11 Commission, non-partisan, non-political, and that was an opportunity lost.”The January 6 committee was appointed by the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, after the Republican leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, tried to appoint Trump allies to a 9/11-style panel. Pelosi rejected those appointments, leading McCarthy to withdraw from the process.The January 6 committee consists of seven Democrats and two Republicans, Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, anti-Trump figures who will soon leave Congress.Who’s next? Republicans who might go up against Trump in 2024Read moreThe panel is wrapping up its work, after it was confirmed on Wednesday that Republicans will take control of the House.In their statement, Thompson and Cheney said: “The select committee has proceeded respectfully and responsibly in our engagement with Vice-President Pence, so it is disappointing that he is misrepresenting the nature of our investigation while giving interviews to promote his new book.“Our investigation has publicly presented the testimony of more than 50 Republican witnesses, including senior members of the TrumpWhite House, the Trump campaign, and the Trump justice department.“This testimony, subject to criminal penalties for lying to Congress, was not ‘partisan’. It was truthful.”TopicsMike PenceJanuary 6 hearingsLiz CheneyUS politicsUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Liz Cheney backs second Democrat, picking Ryan over Vance for Ohio Senate

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      Liz Cheney backs second Democrat, picking Ryan over Vance for Ohio SenateLeading anti-Trump Republican has already endorsed Democrat Elissa Slotkin for re-election in Michigan The Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney has now endorsed two Democrats for election in the midterms next week by backing Tim Ryan in his Ohio US Senate race against JD Vance after endorsing Elissa Slotkin for re-election to the US House in Michigan.Michigan Democrat’s lead shows abortion may be the issue that decides midterm racesRead moreIn Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday, Cheney told the journalist Judy Woodruff she backed Ryan, currently a Democratic congressman, over Vance, the Hillbilly Elegy author and venture capitalist who abandoned criticism of Donald Trump in order to publicly embrace him.“I would not vote for JD Vance,” Cheney said.Asked if she would vote for Ryan if she lived in Ohio, she said: “I would.”In an unexpectedly tight race, the polling website FiveThirtyEight puts Vance two points up.The daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney is a stringent conservative but has nonetheless emerged as perhaps the leading anti-Trump Republican. She rose to national prominence as vice-chair of the House January 6 committee, seeking to establish Trump’s guilt regarding the US Capitol attack, but in August lost her primary in Wyoming to a Trump-backed challenger.Speculation continues over whether Cheney will mount a presidential run in 2024, whether for the nomination in a party dominated by Trump or as an independent. She has not confirmed or denied any plans.She has said she will leave the Republican party if Trump is the nominee again.Cheney endorsed Slotkin last week, saying: “While Elissa and I have our policy disagreements, at a time when our nation is facing threats at home and abroad, we need serious, responsible, substantive members like Elissa in Congress.”It was Cheney’s first ever endorsement of a Democrat. She was due to campaign for Slotkin on Tuesday evening.Earlier on Tuesday, Slotkin told CNN: “While we disagree – and I look forward to debating her in the future on issues of policy – on democracy, we are in vehement agreement. We agree on one really big thing and that’s that there has to be a democratic system … It’s pretty important to me.”The endorsement happened, Slotkin said, after the Republican approached the Democrat on the House floor in September.“She just said, ‘Look, if there’s anything I can do to help, you just let me know,’ and I said, ‘Really?’ and she said, ‘Yeah,’ and that began the conversation. So I’m appreciative because it’s again just another point of bravery that I think I really admire about her.”JD Vance playing defense in unexpectedly close Ohio Senate race Read moreBefore entering politics, Slotkin was a CIA analyst under Barack Obama, a Democrat, and George W Bush, the Republican to whom Dick Cheney was vice-president.Slotkin is running in a newly drawn district against a Republican state senator, Tom Barrett, in what has by some measures become the most expensive midterms race.With a week to go until polling day, Slotkin is pinning her hopes on opposition to Republican abortion bans and the supreme court ruling which this summer overturned the constitutional right to abortion. Cheney has said she remains an opponent of abortion rights.On Tuesday, the polling website FiveThirtyEight gave Slotkin a 74% chance of victory.TopicsLiz CheneyUS midterm elections 2022US politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      The January 6 panel makes it clear: American democracy needs accountability | Lloyd Green

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      The January 6 panel makes it clear: American democracy needs accountabilityLloyd GreenSlavery and civil war tested us 160 years ago. Again, we are being tested. Midterms are less than a month away Thursday’s House select committee was one like no other. Shortly after 1pm, Liz Cheney, the daughter of a vice-president and Republican grandees, warned that the US, as a constitutional republic, was in danger. Two-and-a-half hours later, seven Democrats and two Republicans unanimously voted to subpoena Donald Trump. In all likelihood, he will never appear. Regardless, history had again been made.“Why would Americans assume that our constitution and institutions of our Republic are invulnerable to another attack?” Cheney pondered.The real story of January 6 isn’t what Trump did – it’s what he didn’t | Moira DoneganRead moreTrump yearned to be a modern-day Caesar. He knew that he had lost the election, yet he persevered.White House staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin testified that a week after the election Trump blurted out, “Can you believe I lost to this effing guy?” After his defeat in the supreme court, a wrath-filled Trump remained unbowed.Cassidy Hutchinson, a White House aide and a deputy to Mark Meadows, said that he was “just raging”. Trump seethed, futilely grasping for a way out.“I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark,” he told Meadows, his chief of staff and Hutchinson’s boss. “This is embarrassing.”“Trump had a premeditated plan to declare that the election was fraudulent and stolen before election day,” Cheney said. This is not stuff of democracies, but of banana republics and strongmen.Right-wing stalwarts were there for Trump, offering aid and comfort along the way. “Let’s get right to the violence,” Roger Stone, the veteran Trump-hand, chuckled.Steve Bannon briefed Chinese associates over Trump’s election denial strategy. “And what Trump is going to do is just declare victory, right?” Bannon semi-asked, semi-stated.“He’s gonna declare victory, but that doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner.” Bannon later received a presidential pardon. He will be sentenced later this month for his contempt of Congress conviction and faces fraud charges in New York.Peter Navarro, another White House official, concocted the infamous “Green Bay Sweep”. His trial for contempt of Congress kicks off shortly. It’s a rogues’ gallery.Tom Fitton of the well-funded Judicial Watch helped script Trump’s defiance. In a 31 October 2020 email, he urged Trump to declare himself the winner. “We had an election today– – and I won,” Fitton’s email read. Fitton clamored for mass disenfranchisement too.His memo called for Trump to demand that only votes “counted by the election day deadline” be tallied. This time it went way beyond stripping minorities of their vote – a traditional but unstated Judicial Watch goal. Now he was gunning for urban moms and dads too, the bedrock of the Republican party of yesteryear.More broadly, the Republican party’s sedition wing has plenty of allies who wear suits and ties. Ginni Thomas and John Eastman, Justice Thomas’s wife and clerk, respectively, were definitely not alone. It’s not just about folks in camouflage.The armed mob had embraced Trump, and he loved them back. “I don’t care that they effing had weapons,” he muttered on January 6, according to Hutchinson. If blood were to be spilled and the constitution shredded, so be it. It was about clinging to power without legal justification.Documentary evidence presented by the committee revealed that some members of the Secret Service acted like modern-day praetorians, acting oblivious to threats posed by Trump’s supporters to the certification of the election.“Their plan is to kill people,” one message read. “Please please take this tip seriously and investigate further.” Members of the Secret Service knew that a storm was brewing but turned a blind eye. Their loyalty ran to Trump the man, not the office he occupied.“The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of January 6th was one man, Donald Trump,” Cheney made clear.Amid the hearing, the supreme court rejected Trump’s efforts to tamp down on the justice department’s investigation of his mishandling of presidential documents and classified records. Mar-a-Lago now looks ever more like a prison of the ex-game show host’s making, a custom-built gilded cage complete with gold leaf and dining room. Or a set of The Apprentice.After the 1787 constitutional convention, Benjamin Franklin observed that the US was a republic if we could “keep it”. Slavery and civil war tested us 160 years ago. Again, we are being tested. Midterms are less than a month away.
      Lloyd Green is a regular freelance contributor and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpLiz CheneyDemocratsRepublicanscommentReuse this content More

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      Capitol attack panel votes to subpoena Trump – ‘the central cause of January 6’

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      Capitol attack panel votes to subpoena Trump – ‘the central cause of January 6’The committee expressed it had ‘no doubt’ the ex-president led the effort to overturn the election A congressional panel has voted to compel Donald Trump to testify under oath after naming the former president as the “central cause” of the deadly attack on the US Capitol on January 6.The House of Representatives select committee investigating last year’s riot voted unanimously on Thursday to subpoena Trump for testimony and documents in what may prove a mostly symbolic gesture, given time constraints and his likely legal resistance.Trump privately admitted he lost 2020 election, top aides testifyRead more“We have left no doubt – none – that Donald Trump led an effort to upend American democracy that directly resulted in the violence of January 6,” said Bennie Thompson, chair of the committee, watched by police officers who defended the Capitol that day.“He tried to take away the voice of the American people in choosing their president and replace the will of the voters with his will to remain in power. He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on January 6. So we want to hear from him.”Although some members of Trump’s inner circle, including his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, have testified to the committee, the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and four fellow Republicans have ignored subpoenas. The panel is set to dissolve soon after next month’s midterm elections if Republicans gain control of the House.Trump responded to the subpoena via his Truth Social platform but did not say whether he would comply. “Why didn’t the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago?” he wrote. “Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting? Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’.”The select committee has been investigating the attack on the Capitol for more than a year, interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses. It surpassed many observers’ expectations over the summer with a series of hearings that, polls suggest, convinced some Republicans that Trump bears some responsibility for the riot.On Thursday, at its ninth and possibly final hearing, the panel sought to reclaim the spotlight less than a month before congressional midterm elections in which hundreds of Republicans who back Trump’s false claim of election fraud are running for office.It presented devastating witness testimony that put Trump at the heart of a premeditated coup attempt and violent assault on American democracy.Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the committee, said in an opening statement: “The vast weight of evidence presented so far has shown us that the central cause of January 6 was one man, Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it.“Exactly how did one man cause all of this? Today, we will focus on President Trump’s state of mind, his intent, his motivations, and how he spurred others to do his bidding, and how another January 6 could happen again if we do not take necessary action to prevent it.”The argument echoed earlier hearings which maintained a tight focus on Trump as the singular architect of the insurrection, albeit with the help of aides and enablers, white nationalist extremists and a mob of supporters ready to follow his lead.Cheney – nearing the end of her tenure in Congress after losing a Republican primary race in Wyoming – noted that the committee may ultimately decide to make criminal referrals to the justice department.Leaving no doubt about Trump’s culpability, she added: “Claims that President Trump actually thought the election was stolen are not supported by fact and are not a defence. There is no defence that Donald Trump was duped or irrational. No president can defy the rule of law and act this way in a republic, period.”Unlike past hearings, there was no live witness testimony but, one by one, committee members presented video evidence from witnesses – some of whom had not been seen at its earlier hearings – and information from nearly a million emails, documents and recordings obtained from the Secret Service.Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic congresswoman and member of the panel, argued that Trump planned well in advance to declare victory even before all the ballots had been counted.She said: “We now know more about President Trump’s intention for election night. The evidence shows that his false victory speech was planned well in advance before any votes had been counted. It was a premeditated plan by the president to declare victory no matter what the actual result was. He made a plan to stay in office before election day.”On 31 October 2020, it emerged, the conservative activist Tom Fitton sent an email to Trump aides Molly Michael and Dan Scavino providing a draft statement for Trump to declare victory before mail-in ballots had been counted. It stated: “We had an election today – and I won.”At around 2.30am on 4 November 2020, in the east room of the White House, Trump held a celebratory event in which he declared: “Frankly, we did win this election.”Video evidence showed that Brad Parscale, a former Trump campaign manager, testified to the panel that, as early as July, Trump had planned to declare victory in the 2020 election even if he lost.‘Start smashing pumpkins’: January 6 panel shows Roger Stone discussing violenceRead moreThe committee recently obtained footage of Roger Stone, a political consultant and self-proclaimed dirty trickster who worked for Richard Nixon, from a Danish film crew that followed Stone before and after the election for a documentary entitled A Storm Foretold.A clip from 2 November showed Stone commenting: “I said, fuck the voting, let’s get right to the violence.” Although it does not have all relevant records of Stone’s communications, the panel said, even Stone’s own social media posts acknowledge that he spoke with Trump on 27 December – as preparations for January 6 were under way.Lofgren pointed out that Stone was in close contact with two rightwing groups, the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, that had numerous members attack Capitol police officers. Secret Service records showed that agents received tips ahead of January 6 that the Proud Boys planned to march armed into Washington.Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, told the hearing: “A newly obtained secret service message from that day shows how angry President Trump was about the outcome. ‘Just fyi. POTUS is pissed – breaking news – Supreme Court denied his law suit. He is livid now.’”White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a top aide to then chief of staff Mark Meadows, recalled Trump as being “livid” and “fired up” about the court’s ruling. Trump told Meadows “something to the effect of: ‘I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out,’” Hutchinson told the panel in a recorded interview.The hearing also saw vivid film of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and other Democratic leaders at a secure location in the Capitol. Schumer was seen urging Jeffrey Rosen, the acting attorney general, to tell Trump to call off the rioters.Trump and his supporters – including many Republicans on Capitol Hill – have dismissed the January 6 panel as a political witch-hunt, but the panel’s backers say it is a necessary investigation into a violent threat against democracy.But Thompson started Thursday’s hearing by making the case that its work is not politically motivated, but rather a bipartisan attempt to get to the bottom of an assault on America’s democracy.“Over the course of these hearings, the evidence has proven that there was a multi-part plan led by former president Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election,” the Mississippi congressman said. “When you look back at what has come out through this committee’s work the most striking fact is that all this evidence has come almost entirely from Republicans.”Trump, a businessman and former reality TV star denies wrongdoing, repeatedly hinting he will run for the White House again in 2024. He regularly holds campaign rallies where he continues to push his “big lie” falsely that he lost because of widespread fraud.The attack on the Capitol injured more than 140 police officers and led to several deaths. More than 880 people have been arrested in connection with the riot, with more than 400 guilty pleas so far.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpLiz CheneyUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      January 6 panel’s next hearing will focus on Trump’s ‘state of mind’ during attack

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      January 6 panel’s next hearing will focus on Trump’s ‘state of mind’ during attack House select committee will reconvene Thursday with new video footage showing measures to respond during violence at Capitol The ninth and possibly final hearing of the congressional panel investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol will focus on Donald Trump’s “state of mind” as the insurrection unfolded.The House of Representatives select committee will reconvene in Washington at 1pm on Thursday after a two-and-a-half month break, and is expected to present new video footage showing efforts to respond to the violence as it was unfolding.House January 6 committee postpones public hearing, citing Hurricane IanRead more“There is going to be some discussion of events that took place prior to election day and there’s going to be some looking at events that took place after January 6,” said an aide to the committee, who did not wish to be named. “We’re going to bring a particular focus on the president’s state of mind and his involvement in these events as they unfold.“So what you’re going to see is a synthesis of some evidence we’ve already presented with that new, never-before-seen information to illustrate Donald Trump’s centrality to the scheme from the time prior to the election.”The committee surpassed many observers’ expectations over the summer with a series of televised hearings that put Trump at the heart of an attempted coup – a premeditated assault on American democracy that sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election.On Thursday it will seek to reclaim the spotlight less than a month before congressional midterm elections, in which hundreds of Republicans who back Trump’s false claim of election fraud are running for office.The committee will present documentary evidence that includes information from hundreds of thousands of pages that the Secret Service handed over in response to a subpoena. The records will show how Trump – who encouraged his supporters to “fight like hell” in a speech on the morning of January 6 – was repeatedly alerted to danger yet still tried to stoke the violence, the Washington Post reported.Unlike previous hearings there will be no live witnesses, the aide said, but there will be new witness testimony, including from individuals who have not been heard from before. It is unclear whether that will include Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a conservative activist and wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas. Her interview by the panel last month was transcribed but not videotaped.Thursday’s hearing is expected to last about two and half hours and include statements from the panel’s chair, Bennie Thompson, and vice-chair, Liz Cheney – nearing the end of her tenure in Congress after losing a Republican primary race in Wyoming – as well as all seven other members of the committee, each presenting different elements of the evidence.Whereas past hearings concentrated on a particular topic, earning comparisons with TV crime dramas or podcasts, this one will take “a step back” and examine “the entire plan”. But in a background briefing with reporters, the aide denied it amounted to a closing argument, saying it was difficult to know the select committee’s schedule going forward.“The investigation is ongoing and, of course, at some point there will be a comprehensive report released which will present the committee’s findings in a more complete manner. That work goes on. I would resist any characterisation that makes this seem like the final time you’re going to hear from the committee.”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsDonald TrumpLiz CheneyUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      House January 6 committee postpones public hearing, citing Hurricane Ian

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      House January 6 committee postpones public hearing, citing Hurricane IanStorm bearing down on Florida nixes session that had been expected to feature footage of Trump ally Roger Stone The House January 6 select committee announced that it would postpone what was expected to be its final investigative hearing scheduled for Wednesday over concerns about a hurricane and as it considers how best to present a number of unresolved questions surrounding the US Capitol attack.McConnell endorses bipartisan bill to prevent efforts to overturn US elections Read more“In light of Hurricane Ian bearing down on parts of Florida, we have decided to postpone tomorrow’s proceedings,” the panel’s chairman Bennie Thompson and the vice-chair Liz Cheney said in a joint statement. “We’re praying for the safety of all those in the storm’s path.”The hurricane is forecast to reach category 4 and make landfall on Florida’s gulf coast around the time the hearing is scheduled to begin in Washington, bringing hurricane-force winds and major flooding around the Tampa area, which has not suffered a direct hit from a major storm since 1921.That was not the optimal time to be holding the hearing, sources close to the investigation said: members felt it was insensitive to have a hearing during a potential natural disaster, while television coverage of the findings surrounding Donald Trump would probably be diminished.And at least one of the select committee’s members, Stephanie Murphy, had communicated that she was unable and unwilling to leave her Florida district at a time of a statewide crisis to make a rehearsal the night before the hearing, the sources said.The panel had not disclosed the topics it intended to cover in the hearing – expected to be the final “investigative” hearing, though the select committee could hold another around the time it releases its final report and makes recommendations to prevent future repeats of the 6 January 2021 events.But the select committee was expected to focus at least in part on how Trump political operatives planned to declare victory in the 2020 election regardless of the actual outcome, through court battles and other extrajudicial means to secure Trump a second term, the sources said.The select committee was also expected at the hearing to play several short clips from a documentary by Danish film-makers who captured on camera Trump operative Roger Stone predicting violent clashes over the election results months before it took place.It was not immediately clear what date the hearing, which was originally slated for Wednesday at 1pm, would be rescheduled for, though one of the sources suggested sometime in October. The panel said in the statement: “We will soon announce a date for the postponed proceedings.”The hearing is supposed to mark the winding down of the investigative phase of the select committee’s work, though several pressing issues remain unresolved since the panel last convened in July and made the case that Trump violated the law in refusing to call off the Capitol attack.Among them is whether there existed an indubitable through-line from the former president to operatives such as Stone and Michael Flynn, who were in close contact with the far-right extremist groups – including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers – since indicted for seditious conspiracy over the insurrection.The select committee has found some circumstantial evidence about such ties and previously revealed that Trump directed his then White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to call Stone and Flynn the night before as the extremist groups finalized their plans for the day.Another issue for House investigators is whether Trump’s ouster of former defense secretary Mark Esper was an effort to install a loyalist in his place, one who might have had no objection to using the national guard to seize voting machines or delay their deployment to stop the Capitol attack.Republican ex-congressman suggests colleagues ‘had serious cognitive issues’Read moreThe panel has viewed the plot to seize voting machines – suggested by Flynn during a contentious White House meeting in December 2020, hours before Trump sent a tweet urging his supporters to attend a “wild protest” on 6 January 2021 – as a crucial moment in the timeline.House investigators have also spent time in recent weeks examining Microsoft Teams chats and emails sent between Secret Service agents on security details for Trump and former vice-president Mike Pence that day, as well as discussions about invoking martial law even after the riot.The select committee has also debated in private about how best to highlight other information that it has uncovered, with the members differing on what to present in made-for-television hearings that might reach a broader audience than the contents of a report published later this year.The final stages of its investigation is also playing out against a shifting political situation that could impact how the select committee moves next, including on the question of whether to subpoena Trump himself, as Democrats contemplate potentially losing the House in the midterms in November.TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsExtreme weatherLiz CheneyDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgren to propose bill to stop another January 6 attack

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      Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgren to propose bill to stop another January 6 attackBill aims to guarantee that ‘Congress can’t overturn an election result’ Two members of the US congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack have revealed details of a bill proposing to block any other attempt to coerce the House and the Senate “to steal a presidential election”.On Sunday, House members Liz Cheney and Zoe Lofgren wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal outlining reforms to the Electoral Count Act that they said would ensure “Congress can’t overturn an election result”, which is what those who staged the Capitol attack in early 2021 wanted.“It’s past time”, added Cheney – a Republican from Wyoming – and Lofgren, a California Democrat.They cited how a number of people seeking political office in November’s midterm elections, including those who would oversee the electoral process, have embraced lies from former president Donald Trump that fraudsters stole the election from him against Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race. Those lies inspired Trump’s supporters to mount the Capitol attack in a desperate plot to prevent the House and Senate from certifying the former Republican president’s electoral college loss to his Democratic rival.“This raises the prospect of another effort to steal a presidential election, perhaps with another attempt to corrupt Congress’s proceeding to tally electoral college votes,” the piece from Cheney and Lofgren said.One of the changes which the two congresswomen propose to the Electoral Count Act – first passed in 1887 – is to make clear that a vice-president who ceremonially presides over the Senate lacks any “authority or discretion” to reject a race’s result or delay its certification.That measure is a direct response to Trump’s long-held insistence that his vice-president, Mike Pence, could have single-handedly stopped Congress’s certification of his defeat. Pence – who Trump’s supporters wanted to hang on the day of the attack – has correctly noted that he had no constitutional or legal authority to do that.Additionally, Cheney and Lofgren said they wanted to empower presidential candidates to sue any local-level officials who try to hold up sending election results to Congress for certification. And the pair wanted to limit the grounds on which members of Congress can protest against slates of electors, requiring one-third approval from both chambers for any objections to be considered and a majority to be sustained.Cheney and Lofgren said their proposal “intended to preserve the rule of law for all future presidential elections by ensuring that self-interested politicians cannot steal from the people the guarantee that our government derives its power from the consent of the governed”.The duo’s bill, which they expect to formally introduce this week, could be considered in the House in the coming days, according to the chamber’s Democratic majority leader, Steny Hoyer of Maryland.The Senate, for its part, is engaged in government funding negotiations as a 30 September deadline approaches.The bipartisan committee to which Cheney and Lofgren belong held a series of public hearings earlier this year pressing the case that Trump appears to have violated federal law, among other alleged misdeeds, when he ignored pleas to take action that would have halted his supporters’ assault on the Capitol. The Capitol attack investigation panel has also explored the potential roles that Trump and his advisers had in advance of the January 6 assault.Meanwhile, in August, FBI agents searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after the bureau said it found evidence that the defeated former president was improperly retaining government secrets there without authorization.Cheney’s work on the January 6 committee – and her general opposition to Trump’s lies about his defeat to Biden – carried a steep political cost for her. She was denied another term in Congress after losing a Republican primary election in August to Harriet Hageman, who has echoed Trump’s falsehoods about the outcome of the 2020 presidential race.In June, Lofgren won her party primary and is set to face Republican challenger Peter Hernandez during the 8 November midterm elections.TopicsUS newsUS politicsLiz CheneyUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Cheney vows to fight other Republicans who embrace Trump’s election lie

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      Cheney vows to fight other Republicans who embrace Trump’s election lieCheney says two Republican US senators – Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley – have both made themselves ‘unfit for future office’ The former top Republican Liz Cheney, who lost her Wyoming seat in Congress last week when she was beaten in a primary by a Donald Trump-endorsed challenger, is threatening to turn her political muscle against other prominent politicians in her party who have embraced the former president’s attack on democracy.In an interview with ABC News aired on Sunday, she said that some of the best known Republican figures are now within her sights. She name-checked Kevin McCarthy, Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley – all of whom have openly supported Trump’s lie that electoral fraudsters stole the 2020 presidential race from him and handed it to his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.In the wake of her Wyoming defeat, Cheney has announced plans to set up a new political organization and has indicated that she is considering a 2024 presidential run designed to stop Trump from re-entering the White House.Her comments on Sunday suggest that her plans to confront election deniers go much wider than Trump himself.“I’m going to be very focused on working to ensure that we can do everything we can [to] not … elect election deniers,” she said. “I’m going to work against those people, I’m going to work to support their opponents.”Cheney said that two Republican US senators – Cruz from Texas and Hawley from Missouri – have both made themselves “unfit for future office”. She said that “both know what the role of Congress is with respect to presidential elections and yet both took steps that fundamentally threatened the constitutional order”.Cruz was seminal in the Senate in devising a plot to block certification of Biden’s 2020 victory in six battleground states. Hawley was the first senator to object to Biden’s victory and famously raised his clenched fist to protesters outside the US Capitol on 6 January shortly before the violence erupted. He was later revealed to have fled the Capitol building running once the insurrection started.Cheney also had tough words in the ABC News interview for DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and McCarthy, the current House minority leader. McCarthy is a leading candidate to become Speaker should the Republicans take back the House of Representatives in November.McCarthy was initially critical of Trump’s role in unleashing the violent storming of the Capitol, privately telling fellow party leaders “I’ve had it with this guy”. But since then he has swung behind Trump’s anti-democratic movement.“My views on Kevin McCarthy are very clear,” Cheney said. “He’s been completely unfaithful to the constitution. … I don’t believe he should be the Speaker of the House.”She also accused DeSantis of campaigning for election deniers. “This is something that people have got to have real pause about,” Cheney said.The Wyoming congresswoman is vice-chairperson of the House committee which has been investigating the January 6 Capitol attack. She was also one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the breach of the Capitol compound – eight of whom will not be returning to Congress in January.The fact that those who stood up against Trump’s attempt to subvert American democracy have been almost universally forced from the party was revealing, she said, adding: “It says people continue to believe the lie, they continue to believe what [Trump] is saying which is very dangerous.”She continued: “It also tells you that large portions of our party, including the leadership of our party both at a state level in Wyoming as well as a national level with the RNC [Republican National Committee], is very sick.”Cheney would not specify whether or not she would run for the presidency in two years’ time. Nor would she say, in that case, whether she would run as a Republican or independent.She did say that if she ran it would be to win.Cheney’s direct threat to Trump and his most senior coterie of Republicans in Congress comes at a time of gathering peril for the former president. The FBI search of his home in Mar-a-Lago in Florida has riled up his supporters but has also heightened risk of prosecution for harboring confidential documents that could endanger national security.Earlier this month Trump invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination in response to questions when he was deposed in a lawsuit brought by the attorney general of New York over his company’s financial statements. Last week Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was called before a special grand jury in Atlanta, Georgia, investigating efforts to overturn the election results in that state.On Sunday Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who was involved in Trump’s pressure campaign on Georgia officials to overturn the state’s election results, was granted a temporary reprieve by an appeals court from having to testify before the same grand jury in Fulton county.TopicsRepublicansLiz CheneyUS politicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2020newsReuse this content More