Screenshot/NBC News
- Liz Cheney said some of her GOP colleagues oppose an investigation into the Capitol riot because they played a role in it.
- The commission "threatens people in my party who may have been playing a role they should not have been playing."
- She said accusations of violence associated with the Black Lives Matter protests should be investigated separately.
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Rep. Liz Cheney said that some of her Republican colleagues in Congress are opposed to a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot because they helped provoke the attack or are otherwise culpable.
Cheney, who was ousted from leadership by her own party on Wednesday, has repeatedly called for a bipartisan commission comprised of retired officials with subpoena power to investigate the attack on the Capitol. But GOP leadership and many other lawmakers are opposed to a commission solely focused on the deadly assault and instead want to expand it to include violence that resulted from Black Lives Matter protests last summer.
"There is real concern among a number of members of my own party about a January 6th commission," Cheney said. "That kind of intense, narrow focus threatens people in my party who may have been playing a role they should not have been playing."
She argued that there's no legitimate reason for lawmakers to oppose the proposed commission and noted that Congress has created similar commissions to investigate other attacks, including 9/11, President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and the Pearl Harbor bombing.
Cheney argued that violence associated with the Black Lives Matter protests should be investigated separately.
"We should not dilute the investigation we have to have into January 6," she said.
A slew of Republican lawmakers, including Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley and several House members, have been criticized for actively encouraging the pro-Trump loyalists who stormed the Capitol in the days leading up to Jan. 6 and even on the morning of the attack. 147 Republican lawmakers voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results after the riot.
Far-right activist Ali Alexander, who organized the "Stop the Steal" rally that preceded the Capitol attack, says he planned the protest with help from GOP Rep. Paul Gosar and two other Republican members of Congress, Reps. Mo Brooks and Andy Biggs.
Cheney, who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the riot, called rejecting the GOP's lies about the election and seeking justice for the Capitol riot "the most important issue we are facing right now as a country." She's urging her party to reject Trump's "cult of personality" and rebuild itself on conservative principles and policy. She added that Trump should "never again be anywhere close to the Oval Office."
"We have to embrace the Constitution, we have to reject the lie, because we have to be a party of substance," Cheney said. "We have to be able to say to those voters who left us, you should trust us."