What’s New
Former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney broke her weeks-long silence on X, formerly Twitter, on Friday with a post about Christmas.
“Putting the finishing touches on this year’s Christmas tree,” Cheney wrote, alongside a photo of her Christmas tree. A bracelet that spelled out the word “democracy” was hung around a branch on the tree. “Confident in the words of Abraham Lincoln: ‘This nation is worth fighting for to secure such an inestimable jewel.’”
Putting the finishing touches on this year’s Christmas tree. Confident in the words of Abraham Lincoln: “This nation is worth fighting for to secure such an inestimable jewel.” pic.twitter.com/3hKwSaOqna
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) December 20, 2024
Why It Matters
It was the former congresswoman’s first post on the social media platform since the 2024 U.S. election.
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is one of President-elect Donald Trump‘s most vocal and ardent critics. She endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election and was a fixture on the campaign trail in the weeks leading up to Election Day.
What To Know
Cheney landed in Trump’s crosshairs a number of times during his first term—even though she voted in line with Trump’s position the majority of the time—and tensions between them reached a boiling point when Cheney bucked the majority of her party and joined Democrats in voting to impeach Trump following the deadly January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Cheney also served as the vice chairwoman on the House select panel that investigated Trump’s role in the events before, during and after the failed insurrection.
The former congresswoman lost to a pro-Trump candidate in a 2022 primary election, but she hasn’t let up on her criticism of the president-elect in the years since.
Cheney’s opposition to Trump and her role on the January 6 select panel also painted a target on her back from her former colleagues.
Earlier this week, House Republicans released an interim report taking aim at the January 6 select committee and calling for the FBI to investigate Cheney over her handling of witnesses.
Cheney released a defiant statement in response, saying the report from a Republican Representative, who chairs the House Administration Oversight subcommittee, contained “defamatory allegations” and that no judge “would take this seriously.”
“January 6th showed Donald Trump for who [he] really is — a cruel and vindictive man who allowed violent attacks to continue against our Capitol and law enforcement officers while he watched television and refused for hours to instruct his supporters to stand down and leave,” Cheney’s statement said. “The January 6th Committee’s hearings and report featured scores of [R]epublican witnesses, including many of the most senior officials from Trump’s own White House, campaign and Administration.”
Cheney continued: “All of this testimony was painstakingly set out in thousands of pages of transcripts, made public along with a highly detailed and meticulously sourced 800 page report. The Department of Justice conducted its own independent investigation and reached the same fundamental conclusions.”
Cheney then singled out Loudermilk and the interim report released Tuesday, saying it “intentionally disregards the truth and the Select Committee’s tremendous weight of evidence, and instead fabricates lies and defamatory allegations in an attempt to cover up what Donald Trump did.”
“Their allegations do not reflect a review of the actual evidence, and are a malicious and cowardly assault on the truth,” the statement said. “No reputable lawyer, legislator or judge would take this seriously.”
What People Are Saying
Representative Bennie Thompson, who chaired the January 6 select committee, said in a statement: “His so-called ‘report’ is filled with baseless, conclusory allegations rather than facts. That’s because there’s no escaping the reality that Donald Trump bears the responsibility for the deadly January 6th attack no matter how much Mr. Loudermilk would love to rewrite history for his political purposes.”
Representative Norma Torres, ranking member on the Oversight Subcommittee, said in a statement: “Instead of focusing on the pressing safety challenges confronting Members of Congress and Capitol staff, this Subcommittee has spent taxpayer dollars defending the President-elect and spreading baseless conspiracy theories about the January 6th Select Committee.”
Republican Representative Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania downplayed concerns earlier this month that Cheney will be targeted by Trump, telling Fox News: “This is nonsense. Nobody is going to be going after Liz Cheney and some of the other people that they’ve mentioned along the way.”
What Comes Next
The former Wyoming representative will likely continue being a target for Trump and Republicans.
The president-elect alluded to the interim report Wednesday morning, writing on Truth Social, “Liz Cheney could be in a lot of trouble based on the evidence obtained by the subcommittee, which states that ‘numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, and these violations should be investigated by the FBI.’”
The post Liz Cheney Breaks Silence on X With First Post Since the Election appeared first on Newsweek.
