Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), who serves as vice chair of the House January 6 Committee, said action should be taken to ensure that former President Donald Trump is never allowed near the White House again.
In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Cheney said the House January 6 Committee – which is investigating last year’s storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters in protest of his electoral defeat to Joe Biden – had “first-hand testimony” that the 45th president was watching the incident on television in the dining room next to the Oval Office when the unrest occurred.
Cheney – the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been accused of being a war criminal for his role in the invasion of Iraq and the torture of prisoners – also claimed to have first-hand testimony that Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, asked her father “at least twice” to put an end to the unrest.
“The Briefing Room at the White House is just a mere few steps from the Oval Office. The president could have at any moment walked those very few steps into the Briefing Room, gone on live television, and told his supporters who were assaulting the Capitol to stop,” Cheney argued. “And he failed to do so.”
Cheney told ABC News that it is “hard to imagine a more significant and a more serious dereliction of duty that that,” and suggested that there could be a number of “potential criminal statutes at issue here” which would require “enhanced penalties for that kind of dereliction of duty.”
The congresswoman hinted that such penalties could prohibit Trump from being elected again, claiming that “any man who would provoke a violent assault on the Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes” is “clearly unfit for future office” and “can never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again.”
Asked if she shares Hillary Clinton’s view that if Trump wins office again, it could be the end for American democracy, Cheney said, “I do,” arguing that the 45th president “crossed lines no American president has ever crossed before.”
© 2022, paradox. All rights reserved.
