Rep. Liz Cheney.Photo: Tom Williams/getty
Wyoming Rep.Liz Cheney, a Republicanon the bipartisan congressional committeeinvestigating theJan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitollast year, says that evidence indicates former PresidentDonald Trumpand his circle broke the law in their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost.
“It’s absolutely clear that what President Trump was doing, what a number of people around him were doing, that they knew it was unlawful. They did it anyway,” Cheney told CNN’s Jake Tapper onState of the UnionSunday.
The claim echoes what U.S. District Judge David Cartersaid in a filing last month: that Trump knew allegations of voter fraud were “baseless” but used them as a justification for a plan that would allow his presidency to continue for a second term.
“What we have seen is a massive and well-organized and well-planned effort that used multiple tools to try to overturn an election,” she said, noting that court documents show “in really chilling detail” how far Trump and his supporters were willing to go to keepJoe Bidenout of the White House.
Trump has long insisted that the House of Representatives committee’s investigation of him and his behavior around the Capitol riots — including his continued false claims about the election — were politically motivated and he has done nothing wrong.
Not so said Cheney, a vocal member of the GOP’s anti-Trump minority.
Donald Trump.Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images
“They knew that they were going to attempt to use violence [at the Capitol] to try to stop the transfer of power,” she told Tapper on Sunday. “That is the definition of an insurrection.”
Though she cited Judge Carter’s filing and other records available to the public, Cheney said her committee — which has conducted interviews with senior Trump administration officials, including the president’s daughterIvanka Trump and son-in-law, Jared Kushner— has also gathered “a tremendous amount of testimony and documents that I think very, very clearly demonstrate the extent of the planning and the organization and the objective.”
“The objective was absolutely to try to stop the count of electoral votes, to try to interfere with that official proceeding,” she told Tapper. “And it’s absolutely clear that they knew what they were doing was wrong, they knew that it was unlawful, and they did it anyway.”
The attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.Samuel Corum/Getty
The New York Timesreported Sundaythat the Jan. 6 committee has concluded that it holds sufficient evidence to make a criminal referral to the Department of Justice regarding Trump, who has repeatedlyacknowledged the larger planto stop Congress from siding with Biden, citing his false claims of voter fraud.
But theTimesalso reported that the committee was divided on whether to make a recommendation given political sensitivity and the Justice Department’s own widening investigation. (A spokesman for the committee did not respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.)
Cheney told Tapper there was “not really a dispute” among committee members but elaborated on why the decision about sending their findings to the Justice Department was complicated.
“Some people feel like a referral, which actually has no legal weight, would only taint the process under which Attorney General Merrick Garland might act,” she told Tapper. “Some feel that that’s the wrong argument, that right is right, and the committee has the evidence it has.”
Cheney didn’t answer Tapper’s question about which side of the debate she’s on, instead repeating her assessment that “there’s not really a dispute on the committee” and praising its work on the investigation.
“The committee is working in a really collaborative way to discuss these issues, as we are with all of the issues we’re addressing,” she said, adding, “I think that it is the single most collaborative committee on which I have ever served. I’m very proud of the bipartisan way in which we’re operating. And I’m confident that we will work to come to agreement on all of the issues that we’re facing.”
source: people.com
