For weeks, MP Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) Had, according to people close to her, been “obsessed” with investigating the January 6, 2021 uprising. She has spent more than half an hour working on gathering evidence, flipping through thousands of pages of testimony, writing scripts for hearings and devising strategies to best convince her fellow voters and Republicans that the events of that January day were part of a creepy conspiracy under the supervision of former President Donald Trump to undermine democracy. On Thursday night, at the first of a series of congressional hearings, Cheney recounted the case in a passive but provocative presentation, often showing video footage from the former president’s inner circle who admitted that his allegations of vote-rigging were unfounded. had no value. She teased the biggest findings of the investigation and harshly criticized her Republican colleagues for the roles they played – including the possibility of continuing to support Trump. “There will come a point where Donald Trump will leave,” Cheney said, “but your dishonesty will remain.” THE ATTACK: The siege of the US Capitol on January 6 was neither a spontaneous act nor an isolated incident. These hearings, which continue on Monday, could mark the peak of Cheney’s political career or the end of it. The former rising GOP star has already been alienated from party leaders, abandoned by longtime supporters and under constant attack from Trump and his allies, who support a leading challenger Cheney will face in August. While most of the nine other Republicans who voted to oust Trump after Jan. 6 either chose not to run for re-election or largely avoided discussing the former president, Cheney has made her role as vice-chair of the select committee. the uprising in the spotlight. its proposal to the voters. He is trying to convince them that he is on the right side of the story – and that his Trump-free approach to conservatism is the right one. “These issues about what happened on January 6 and around Donald Trump and the danger he poses are important to every American,” Cheney told supporters at a rally in Cheyenne, WA on Saturday. “And I feel very strongly my responsibility.” The House Electoral Committee held its first meeting on June 9, after spending almost a year investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. (Video: Mahlia Posey / The Washington Post, Photo: Demetrius Freeman / The Washington Post) In more than 20 conversations with lawmakers, political agents, enemies and friends of the Wyoming Republican, she is uniformly described as persistently and surgically focused on eliminating Trump from the modern conservative movement he has largely redefined in recent years. with forces larger than Trump facilitating her ouster from the Wyoming Republican Party earlier this year. Cheney said the deadly attack on the US Capitol was beyond the party’s reach and that she’s a non-partisan task of clearing out the people she “betrayed and lied to” by Trump. Cheney attended several private meetings with GOP leaders in the days leading up to the attack and was in Parliament as rebels tried to break down doors, helping other lawmakers wear gas masks because tear gas had exploded nearby. Democrats chair the select committee, but have postponed Cheney – the daughter of a still abusive Republican vice president – at the inaugural hearing to methodically report the case against Trump. “She has had a huge lead in the rest of the committee in understanding these events because she knows the players and understands the GOP’s internal political culture – this is very familiar ground to her,” said Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) . 6 questions The committee on 6 January intends to answer the attack Cheney’s Republican counterparts tried to understand her motives, especially given the political price she pays in Wyoming, where Trump celebrated his widest chance of victory. Some wonder if he wants to run for office. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) Told others he understood Cheney’s position, but “it’s the only thing she cares about,” according to an adviser. “It does not help anyone.” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (California) told Cheney after the vote on her referral that he would try to protect her if she rejects Trump attacks, but she refused, said people familiar with the matter. He has described it privately as an “obsession” with Trump and the destruction of his political power, they said. Cheney has repeatedly criticized McCarthy for going to Mar-a-Lago to see Trump immediately after the attack and blaming him for Trump’s resurrection after Jan. 6, according to a person familiar with the matter. Cheney explained her motives in personal terms at Saturday’s event, pointing to January 6 by the time she realized that a peaceful transfer of power was no longer a guarantee. “I looked at my boys in the weeks after January 6th. “It became very clear that we might suddenly have to question that,” Cheney said. “And I am absolutely committed to doing what I can, what is required, and I have to do it to make sure that we are not the last generation in America who can count on a peaceful transition of power. It’s extremely important. “
“Trump is extremely popular in Wyoming” Days before the inaugural hearing, Cheney stood at the Old West Museum in Cheyenne, surrounded by 19th-century horse-drawn carriages, and told a small crowd of supporters that Trump “could not be anywhere near this power again.” . The crowd of about 70 supporters consisted mostly of traditional Republicans, including some who supported her father’s first campaign more than 40 years ago, as well as some independent-minded voters. “What we do in Wyoming will be so important,” he said. “I can not overestimate how important what we do is, because it will be important from the point of view of our democracy as a whole. It will matter. “People will be watching Wyoming.” In the August 16 Wyoming primary, Cheney faces Harriet Hagman, a lawyer and former member of the Republican National Committee whose campaign is led by Trump advisers. The former president attended a large rally for Hageman in late May and claimed that “the people of Wyoming can not stand” Cheney. Following Georgia’s losses, Trump aims to oust Cheney in Wyoming Cheney’s advisers describe the race as difficult, and Trump has argued that the MP is lagging behind in opinion polls. Cheney has held back the huge war chest of her campaign, but last week launched a huge television advertising campaign that only indirectly mentions “resistance to bullies.” It has not been able to host large, publicized campaign events, in part for security reasons, and instead gathers dozens of supporters at a time and then uses its digital media team to broadcast video clips of the event to supporters across the state. Cheney, 56, has had a complicated relationship with Wyoming for a long time. He attended high school in the state, but mostly grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC, North Virginia. Her father, Dick Cheney, a junior White House aide, became the youngest chief of staff ever for Gerald Ford before returning to Wyoming to win the state’s only seat in Parliament in 1978. Liz Cheney’s political point of view was shaped by her The trajectory of the father of conservative hawks, especially when he became Secretary of Defense in 1989 and then Vice President George W. Bush. She served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at a time when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were raging. He embraced the popular belief among many neoconservatives that all people longed for democratic governance free of their authoritarian regimes, justifying US military action in many parts of the world and leading Trump to ridicule it as a “war trap.” During the Obama administration, Cheney began to carve out her own identity, especially as a party commentator on Fox News who downplayed the White House. In 2013, he tried to challenge Senator Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) But withdrew from the fight amid an angry backlash. She then ran for her father’s former seat in Parliament in 2016 and won, saying her starfish would help the state. Tim Stubson, a former state spokesman who lost to Cheney in 2016 but now supports it, said he remembers Cheney saying, “I have a national voice. I have a national presence. I can use it for the benefit of the state of Wyoming. “ “This was her stadium,” Stubson said. “And that’s exactly what he did.” As Cheney was the first candidate for the post, Trump became the candidate for the presidency of the party. Stubson recalls carefully embracing most of Trump’s conservative policies, but not his outrageous behavior – later earning her praise from Trump’s family members and senior advisers at a fundraiser at the 2019 Wyoming Resort in Jackson. Trump won the state by 46 percentage points in 2016 – slightly better than Mitt Romney in 2012 – and then by 43 percentage points in 2020. What Wyoming really thinks about Liz Cheney During that time, the Wyoming Republican Party was slowly gaining ground over conservatives who identify more as Trump supporters than Republicans. The state party is now led by Frank Eathorne, a member of the Oath Keepers who stood on the Capitol West Front during the uprising, with a walkie-talkie in hand. Cheney has focused heavily on exploring his role, advisers say. “This [takeover] “It was designed for several years, very organized and very dedicated,” said Joe McGinley, formerly Natrona …
