- Liz Cheney swatted back attempts to criticize the House January 6 Committee.
- She also defended Mike Pence after he said Trump was "wrong" to say it was possible to overturn the election.
- Cheney said the panel's investigation is "also about fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law."
Rep. Liz Cheney on Thursday fired back at criticism of the House January 6 Committee, saying the panel will show that "no massive voter fraud changed the election" and that Trump's repeated lies about the outcome "provoked" the violence that became the insurrection.
"The Jan. 6 investigation isn't only about the inexcusable violence of that day: It is also about fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law, and whether elected representatives believe in those things or not," Cheney wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Cheney defended former Vice President Mike Pence, who in a high-profile speech last week, declared that Trump is "wrong" to continue to suggest that Pence had the power to overturn the election when Congress met to certify the results, a process that rioters delayed for hours.
"That notion was, as Mr. Pence said, 'un-American.' What Mr. Trump had insisted that Mr. Pence do on Jan. 6 was not only un-American, it was unconstitutional and illegal," Cheney writes.
Cheney confirmed that the January 6 Committee, where she is the top Republican, will hold public hearings later this year. She said the hearings will detail why Trump and his allies' claims about the election are bunk and illustrate why he bears responsibility for the Capitol riot.
It is worth noting that constitutional experts strongly reject any claim that a vice president could unilaterally overturn results. If Pence were to have done such an action, he would have disenfranchised millions of Americans in the process. As Pence himself pointed out if such power existed Democrats could easily wield it against a Republican presidential candidate.
"Under the Constitution, I had no right to change the outcome of our election. And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024," Pence said in Florida.
Cheney's op-ed also comes after the Republican National Committee censured both her and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the other Republican on the panel, for "participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse."
The RNC's action and the wording of the censure, especially calling elements of January 6 "legitimate political discourse," has unleashed a torrent of criticism, including from fellow Republicans.