Democrats move to elevate Cheney’s role on Jan. 6 commission
Democrats are seeking to elevate the role of Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., on the committee examining the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, scheduling her to deliver one of the two opening statements at the panel’s first public hearing on Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the decision.
The move is intended to present the committee as a bipartisan effort following Republican leadership’s decision not to participate in the panel after Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., last week rejected two of their picks for the panel.
During a closed-door meeting last week, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., proposed to Pelosi and Cheney that having the Wyoming Congresswoman speak after Chairman Bennie Thompson, DMiss., would present a “strong visual” for the committee’s goals and intentions as it embark on a months long process to investigate the insurrection, according to a person familiar with the conversation who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations.
“The vast majority of the Republicans, both in the House, as well as across the country, recognize and understand that this was an assault on our democracy and assault on our Constitution, and that
there must be a fact based investigation so that this never happens again,” Cheney said last week.
“And we cannot allow those voices who are attempting to prevent the American people from getting the truth to prevail and we certainly will not.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., pulled all his five Republican picks from serving on the committee last week after rejected Reps. Jim
Jordan, R-Ohio, and Jim Banks, R-Ind., as too politically motivated to take the investigation seriously. Banks would have served as the panel’s ranking Republican had he been seated.
After McCarthy decided not to have his members participate, Democrats had originally planned to have only Thompson deliver opening remarks in his capacity as chairman until Schiff suggested Cheney also be allowed to speak.
As the only committee on Capitol Hill tasked with solely investigating the security failures and political motivations that inspired a mob of former president Donald Trump’s supporters to break into the Capitol, the seven Democrats and two Republicans are seeking to project an attitude of cooperation and bipartisanship amid Republican attacks on the panel as a partisan effort seeking to score political points.
Tuesday’s hearing will feature four police officers – two from the Capitol’s protection squad and two from D.C. police – who are expected to testify about their experiences of both physical and verbal abuse on Jan. 6, as they tried to protect the Capitol from a swelling horde of demonstrators determined to stop Congress’s efforts to certify the 2020 electoral college results and declare Joe Biden the next president.
Cheney is no longer the sole Republican representative on the panel after Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., accepted Pelosi’s offer to serve on the committee over the weekend.