Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) wanted one thing to be clear during her Q&A session with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith, “any interaction” former President Donald Trump has with the House Committee investigation into Jan. 6 would be “under oath and subject to penalties of perjury.”
Cheney, one of two Republicans on the panel and serves as its Vice Chair, has been tight-lipped on the committee’s inner workings, a stance other panel members share.
During Saturday’s appearance at the Texas Tribune in Austin, Cheney refused to divulge whether the panel was seeking input from Trump but emphasized that if it did, the former President would have to tell the truth.
Cheney also mentioned how her GOP colleagues were going through “contortions” to explain and defend why the former President had hundreds of classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
“You look at how many senior Republicans are going through contortions to try to defend the fact that the former president had stored in a desk drawer apparently, in an unsecure storage room, in a resort … documents that had the highest classification markings,” Cheney emphasized.
But Cheney defended her decision to not vote against Trump in his first impeachment trial, saying she has learned from that and applied it to the Jan. 6 investigation.
“They would have had more Republican votes if they had enforced their subpoenas, and that is certainly a lesson that we have taken into [the] Jan. 6 Select Committee’s work,” Cheney told Smith.
Cheney also reiterated a common phrase she’s used recently, saying, “I will do everything I can” to prevent Trump from being the 2024 nominee, adding that if he was, “I won’t be a Republican.”
