Conservative Rep. Liz Cheney Wants Trump Prosecuted for Role in Jan. 6 Attack: 'Are We a Nation of Laws?'
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Rep. Liz Cheney says that, if the Department of Justice chooses not to prosecute former President Donald Trump over his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, it will lead her to question how the United States can call itself "a nation of laws."
In an interview with CNN's Kasie Hunt, Cheney said, "Understanding what it means if the facts and the evidence are there, and they decide not to prosecute — how do we then call ourselves a nation of laws? I think that's a very serious, serious balancing."
"The question for us is, are we a nation of laws? Are we a country where no one is above the law? And what do the facts and the evidence show?" Cheney said.
Cheney — who is vice chair of the House select committee investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection — said the committee is "going to continue to follow the facts. I think Department of Justice will do that. But they have to make decisions about prosecution."
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty; Brandon Bell/Getty Liz Cheney (left), Donald Trump
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Elsewhere in the interview, the Wyoming representative said that Trump is "guilty of the most serious dereliction of duty of any president in our nation's history," referencing a federal judge, who in a court filing in March said that "it is more likely than not" that the former president "attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress" on Jan. 6.
In the filing, Judge David Carter wrote that Trump and his attorney John Eastman enacted a plan to overturn the election, and justified that plan with allegations of election fraud.
"But President Trump likely knew the justification was baseless, and therefore that the entire plan was unlawful," Carter wrote.
Elsewhere in that ruling, Carter wrote that Eastman and Trump "launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower — it was a coup in search of a legal theory. The plan spurred violent attacks on the seat of our nation's government, led to the deaths of several law enforcement officers, and deepened public distrust in our political process."
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Cheney has been vocal about her focus to hold the former president accountable and his supporters for the attack on the U.S. Capitol and attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
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Cheney, one of two Republicans on the Jan. 6 panel, is facing reelection this year.
Her criticism of Trump has left her ostracized from her party, and she is suffering in polls that show her trailing Donald Trump-endorsed candidate Harriet Hageman (who she will face in an Aug. 16 primary) by a wide margin.
