This week, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) made the case before the House of Representatives for holding Trump allies Dan Scavino, Jr. and Peter Navarro in contempt of Congress because of their refusals to comply with subpoenas from the House committee investigating the Capitol riot. In so doing, Cheney laid out some of the condemning evidence that the riot committee, where she serves as vice chair, has gathered implicating Trump. She presented Trump as responsible for the deadly violence that enveloped the Capitol last year, explaining how these conclusions aren’t based in conjecture. The riot panel has heard from over 800 witnesses, including individuals who served in the Trump administration. Cheney remarked:
‘When you hear my colleagues make political, partisan attacks on the Select Committee, I hope that all of us can remember some basic facts. Through these interviews, we have learned that President Trump and his team were warned in advance and repeatedly that the efforts they undertook to overturn the 2020 election would violate the law and our Constitution. They were warned that January 6 could and likely would turn violent. And they were told repeatedly by our state and federal courts, by our Justice Department, and by agencies of our intelligence community that the allegations of widespread fraud sufficient to overturn an election were false and were unsupported by the evidence. And yet, despite all of these specific warnings, President Trump and his team moved willfully, through multiple means, to attempt to halt the peaceful transfer of power, to halt the Constitutional process for counting votes, and to shatter the Constitutional bedrock of our great nation.’
.@LeaderMcConnell says he’s contributed to @Liz_Cheney’s re-election campaign but asked if he’d hold/ participate in fundraising & other campaign events, he tells @jonathanvswan he’s “focused on the Senate”
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) April 7, 2022
Later, she added that “Donald Trump’s stolen election campaign succeeded in provoking the violence on January 6” — directly implicating the ex-president in what happened at the Capitol last year. The House ended up approving contempt findings implicating Scavino and Navarro, although it’s now up to the Justice Department when it comes to whether or not to prosecute the duo. The House has referred two other people to the department for prosecution on contempt of Congress in connection to defying the riot committee — one of them, Steve Bannon, was charged and is awaiting trial, but the department has not taken the House’s recommendation to charge Meadows — although theoretically that could change. Justice Department officials are traditionally publicly cagey about their investigative decisions, so the next steps for the Scavino and Navarro cases were not immediately clear. Meanwhile, Cheney also criticized Republican members of Congress who she said “have abandoned their oaths in order to perform for Donald Trump. That will be their legacy.” Watch Cheney’s remarks below:
