Complaints About Cheney Lead to Committee Bickering

Trump jumps in on the squabble over final report, as well
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 24, 2022 4:55 PM CST
Complaints About Cheney Lead to Committee Bickering
Rep. Liz Cheney appears on a screen as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol holds a hearing on Capitol Hill last month.   (Jonathan Ernst/Pool Photo via AP)

Divisions among the staff and members of the House Jan. 6 committee that had been kept behind the scenes have become public. Former and current staff members are displeased that Rep. Liz Cheney has steered the panel's final report to concentrate on former President Donald Trump, which they say is to the exclusion of other findings and the benefit of Cheney. The vice chair is a Republican in her final weeks in office, after her reelection attempt ended with a Wyoming primary loss this summer. "We all came from prestigious jobs, dropping what we were doing because we were told this would be an important fact-finding investigation that would inform the public," a former committee staff member told the Washington Post. "But when [the committee] became a Cheney 2024 campaign, many of us became discouraged."

Statements issued in response reflect tension. Some panel employees turned in poor work that reflected "long-held liberal biases," said Jeremy Adler, a Cheney spokesman. The vice chair won't sign onto anything that casts Republicans as "inherently racist or smears men and women in law enforcement," he said. As for the focus on Trump, Adler said: "Donald Trump is the first president in American history to attempt to overturn an election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. So, damn right Liz is 'prioritizing' understanding what he did and how he did it and ensuring it never happens again."

A committee spokesman also attacked the complainers, who he said are uninformed about much of the work. "They've forgotten their duties as public servants and their cowardice is helping Donald Trump and others responsible for the violence of January 6th," Tim Mulvey said. The Post report brought an attack by Trump on Cheney, posting on Truth Social that she's "a complete psycho" who "has no regard for the truth," per the Hill. Axios reported Thursday that it expects the committee's final report about the attack on the Capitol to be released in mid-December and total about 1,000 pages. (More Liz Cheney stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X