As House Jan. 6 committee prepares to go public, Liz Cheney says they now know what Trump was doing

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has "interviewed more than 300 witnesses, collected tens of thousands of documents, and traveled around the country to talk to election officials who were pressured by Donald Trump," The Associated Press reports. Now, the committee "is preparing to go public," with several televised hearings, an interim report in the spring, and a final report in the fall.
"Let me say that what we have been able to ascertain is that we came perilously close to losing our democracy," Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told CNN on Sunday.
"The full picture is coming to light, despite President Trump's ongoing efforts to hide the picture," committee Vice-Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), told AP. "I don't think there's any area of this broader history in which we aren't learning new things."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Among those new things, Cheney told ABC News on Sunday, is what Trump himself was — and was not — doing during the insurrection. "The committee has firsthand testimony now that he was sitting in the dining room next to the Oval Office watching the attack on television," and as he was sitting there, "members of his staff were pleading with him to go on television to tell people to stop," she said. "We have firsthand testimony that his daughter Ivanka went in at least twice to ask him to please stop this violence."
At any time, Trump could have gone on TV and his rioting supporters "to go home – and he failed to do so," Cheney said. "It's hard to imagine a more significant and more serious dereliction of duty than that."
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the other Republican on the nine-member committee, told AP that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) "made an epic mistake" by refusing to appoint any members to the committee after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) rejected two of his nominees. "I think part of the reason we've gone so fast and have been so effective so far is because we've decided and we have the ability to do this as a nonpartisan investigation," and it would have been "a very different scene" if Trump allies were on the committee, obstructing their work.
Politico's Kyle Cheney made a similar case in late December, calling McCarthy's decision to boycott the Jan. 6 committee "the most important development of the entire investigation." And "Pelosi's decision to keep the Jan. 6 panel small has enabled her to populate it with members who stay relentlessly on message," he added, singling out Liz Cheney as "a singular, and singularly disciplined, force."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
JD Vance rises as MAGA heir apparent
IN THE SPOTLIGHT The vice president is taking an increasingly proactive role in a MAGA movement roiled by scandal and anxious about a post-Trump future
-
Congress should 'step in' to block Trump's White House ballroom makeover
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring push
Speed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additions
Speed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein files
Speed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
-
Eighty years after Hiroshima: how close is nuclear conflict?
Today's Big Question Eight decades on from the first atomic bomb 'we have blundered into a new age of nuclear perils'
-
Epstein: A boon for Democrats?
Feature Democrats' push to release the Epstein files splits the GOP, sending the House into an early summer recess
-
India rejects Trump threat over Russian oil
Speed Read The president said he would raise tariffs on India for buying and selling Russian oil