Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Tuesday said her work on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is “probably the most important thing I’ve done professionally.”
“I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done and of my fellow members of that committee. I think it’s probably the most important thing I’ve ever done professionally, and absolutely crucial for the functioning of our democracy going forward,” Cheney said during a speaking event at Harvard University.
Before taking her House seat representing Wyoming’s at-large district in 2017, Cheney was deputy assistant secretary of State and principal deputy assistant secretary of State for the Middle East. She also spent time practicing law.
Her comment on Tuesday came in response to a question on how the congressional probe into the Capitol attack took the form of a select committee rather than a 9/11-style commission. Lawmakers initially planned to have an outside bipartisan commission, modeled after the 9/11 investigation but Republicans ultimately blocked the venture.
Congress then turned to a congressional select committee. The panel’s investigation has spanned more than a year, and culminated this summer and fall with a series of nine public hearings laying out the committee’s findings.
The group has sought to show that former President Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to keep himself in power.
At the ninth hearing last week, lawmakers on the panel unanimously voted to subpoena Trump for testimony under oath and documents in connection to the Jan. 6 attack. On Tuesday, Cheney said the panel will be issuing Trump the formal request “shortly.”
One day after the committee announced its subpoena, Trump released a 14-page response that skirted the question of whether or not he would comply with the request. Instead, the former president touted disproven claims that the 2020 presidential race was stolen.
Cheney also aired concerns Tuesday about Republicans on the ballot in November who have refused to say whether or not they will accept the results of their races, a group that includes Republican gubernatorial nominees Kari Lake in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania..
Cheney says that situation represents “the end of democracy.”
“And we have many candidates today, Republicans, and it pains me to say that because I have been a lifelong Republican, but candidates who say they will only certify elections that they agree with. That’s the end of democracy,” she told the audience at Harvard.
n addition to Republicans running for office, Cheney also criticized some of her GOP colleagues. She knocked House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who she frequently spars with, for his recent comments on Ukraine aid.
The GOP leader told Punchbowl News in an interview published Tuesday morning that a Republican House majority will not “write a blank check to Ukraine.”