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One day after the Jan. 6 congressional committee voted to subpoena former President Donald Trump, outgoing U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, brought a warning to students at the University of Notre Dame.
“There are some crucially important facts that I want to talk about today,” Cheney said during a Friday address on the South Bend campus, “and that is the threat posed by Donald Trump. It is an ongoing and real threat.”
Cheney, a Republican from Wyoming, pulled no punches when discussing the former Republican president, with whom she has publicly clashed both while he was in office and in the years since. That has included her role on the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, which was aimed at stopping the certification of now-President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral victory over Trump.
Cheney spoke at length about Jan. 6 and the days surrounding it during her speech, “Saving Democracy by Revering the Constitution,” hosted by the Notre Dame Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government. The center is led by professor Vincent Phillip Munoz, who is also a concurrent associate professor of law at Notre Dame Law School.
Cheney began her remarks — which Indiana Lawyer listened to via livestream — by discussing the night of Jan. 6, 2021, when members of Congress reconvened at the Capitol around 9 p.m. following their earlier evacuation during the insurrection.
She recalled walking through Statuary Hall and the Rotunda and seeing law enforcement officers in SWAT and tactical gear. She also recalled seeing John Trumbull’s 19th-century painting, which hangs in the Rotunda, of George Washington resigning his commission as commander in chief of the United States Army.
“Trumble, who painted this, said he thought this was ‘one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world,’ this voluntary handing back of power,” Cheney said. She went on to say that soon after Jan. 6, she had a realization that her children could be part of an American generation that can no longer count on the peaceful transition of power after elections.
“And I determined then, I am determined now, as long as I can, in every way possible, I’m gonna fight to make sure that that is not the case,” Cheney said to applause, which interrupted her remarks for about 15 seconds, “that every single generation, that all of us know we can guarantee the peaceful transfer of power and count on the peaceful transfer of power.”
The congresswoman said today’s Americans must answer a fundamental question: Will we commit ourselves to the constitution and to honoring the outcome of elections — “even when we lose, and maybe especially when we lose?”
“That is the fundamental fabric of our democracy, and that is what is at risk today,” she said.
Cheney herself recently suffered a loss in Wyoming’s August primary, which means she will leave Congress in January after serving three terms.
Turning back to Jan. 6 and the events surrounding the insurrection, Cheney took direct aim at Trump.
Trump was advised on election night not to claim victory, Cheney said, but he ignored that advice, declared victory and “set about trying to find the evidence, trying to find people who would fabricate the evidence” of his victory.
Those efforts, she said, gave credence to widespread claims of fraud in the 2020 election, although officials both in and out of the Trump administration have publicly said there was no evidence of fraud.
“When people say to me …they think it (the election) was stolen, people will say, ‘Well, maybe there was fraud,’” Cheney said. “Another key point to remember is that on Election Day, and in the days after the election, there was no American, no American who was better informed about the absence of fraud than Donald Trump.”
Trump’s claims of fraud, Cheney said, culminated in the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when thousands gathered for a “Stop the Steal” rally on The Ellipse. There, she said, Trump “sent them to march on the Capitol” knowing the protesters were angry and armed.
Even as the insurrection was unfolding, Cheney said, Trump sent out a Tweet saying then-Vice President Mike Pence “didn’t have the courage” to stop the certification of Biden’s electoral victory. Trump had asked Pence, as president of the Senate, to reject Biden’s win and send the votes back to the states, but Pence declined.
According to Cheney, Trump watched news coverage of the insurrection from the Oval Office dining room while members of his family, his staff and Congress urged him to tell the protestors to stop and go home.
At 2:38 p.m., Trump sent out a tweet asking protestors to “support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement” and to “Stay peaceful.” That was about 20 minutes after the violence at the Capitol had begun, according to CNN.
Cheney praised the “power and courage and dazzling honor of individual Americans who saved this republic” on and after Jan. 6.
She specifically pointed to Arizona Rep. Rusty Bowers, a Republican “who was the recipient of unbelievably intense pressure” to change the outcome of the election in Arizona, which was ultimately called for Biden. She gave similar praise to Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews and Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — all of whom testified before the Jan. 6 committee.
“In this nation, our institutions do not sustain themselves. They only sustain themselves because individuals do the right thing,” Cheney said.
Turning to the courts, the congresswoman said 61 out of 62 courts that heard claims of 2020 election fraud rejected those claims.
“We can all disagree with the rulings of the courts, but none of us can ignore the rulings of the courts,” Cheney said. “And Donald Trump did that.
“… We need to recognize and understand what it means when we say that we’re a nation of laws,” she continued. “When we say that we’re a nation of laws, that means that no matter the outcome, no matter our disagreements with the courts, we abide by and we respect them.”
Both in her prepared remarks and in a Q&A with students and faculty that followed, Cheney addressed the country’s increasing political polarization. As a remedy, she called on Americans to be conscious of the information they consume and urged all citizens, regardless of political party, to reject violence in any political disagreements.
Cheney deflected questions about what she’ll do after leaving Congress in January, including the question of whether she intends to run for president in 2024. She said her focus is currently on working to “right” the nation’s politics.
“I’m not focused on that from a campaign perspective,” she said. “… I really am focused on it from the perspective of, what do we need to do, and what can I do, to help make sure that we get back to a place where we’ve clearly defeated the threat and we’re embracing and perpetuating the constitution?”
Cheney’s full remarks can be watched online.
The Associated Press and NPR contributed to this report.
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