Liz Cheney, the third-most senior Republican in the House of Representatives, has raised the possibility that Donald Trump may be under criminal investigation for inciting violence during the January 6 U.S. Capitol uprising, pointing to a tweet in which he said his own vice president Mike Pence, which was posted after the attack started.
In extraordinary comments on Fox News Sunday, Cheney specifically referred to the “massive criminal investigation” into the Capitol uprising that is now engulfing the country. She said the investigation would cover “every aspect” of the January 6 events and look at “everyone involved.”
But she kept her sharpest words for Trump. “People will want to know what the president was doing,” she said. “They will want to know if the tweet he sent out calling Vice President Mike Pence a coward while the attack was going on was a deliberate attempt to provoke violence.”
Cheney’s suggestion of possible criminal action against the former president comes just two days before the start of his impeachment trial in the US Senate for “instigating insurrection.” While she will not be participating in the trial as a juror – that role is being filled by senators – her comments hinted at the turmoil the upcoming trial is causing in her party.
Last week, she survived an attempt by other House Republicans to remove her from her leadership position in protest at her support of Trump’s impeachment. On Saturday, the Republican Party in her home state of Wyoming voted to disapprove of her, calling for her immediate resignation.
Cheney said on Sunday she would not step down. “The oath I took on the constitution forced me to vote for impeachment – it doesn’t bend to bias or political pressure, and I’ll stick to that.”
But the swirl of criticism around her, coupled with her keen reference to possible criminal ramifications for Trump, point to how the former president continues to stir the Republican party, to the extent that she threatens to tear her apart.
On Tuesday, he will make American history by becoming the first sitting or former president to be subject to impeachment a second time.
Ahead of the historic proceedings, prominent Democrats took to the political shows on Sunday and spoke passionately about why Trump deserved to be convicted for his role in allegedly instigating the January 6 attack. Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts congressman, called on senators to “honor their oath and hold Trump accountable and prevent him from ever holding office again.”
Speaking of CNN’s State of the Union, she recalled the “poignant and traumatic” attack on the Capitol and placed it in a personal and historical context. “As a black woman, to be barricaded in my office, on the floor, in the dark – that terror is known to me in a deep and ancestral way.”
She said she was haunted by the image of black staff in the Capitol cleaning up the mess caused by the white supremacist uprising. “That’s a metaphor for America. We’ve been clearing out white supremacist crowds for generations – and it must end, ”she said.
In contrast, there was little sign of a substantial willingness to convict among Republican senators. Were all 50 Democratic senators to vote for it, they would still have to be joined by 17 Republican senators to reach the two-thirds majority required by the constitution.
Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky, said Tuesday’s trial was an attempt to criminalize political statements. Speaking on Fox News Sunday, he said, “Are we going to accuse and possibly prosecute people for political speech when they say ‘Get up and fight for your country, make your voices heard’?”
Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy told NBC News’s Meet the Press that the trial had been rushed. “There was no trial. If it happened in the Soviet Union you would call it a show trial. “
Pat Toomey, the Pennsylvania Republican senator who is critical of Trump, told CNN he considered it “very unlikely” that the former president would be convicted. Without conviction, senators would not be able to pass a new vote to stop Trump from ever holding public office.
The case will be presented to senators by house managers. In their briefing, they claim Trump “summoned a crowd to Washington, incited them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
In a 14-page retort, Trump’s lawyers claim that he did not participate in rebellion and that it is unconstitutional to impeach him as a former president.
The evidence stage of the Senate trial will likely focus on Trump’s comments that led to the January 6 violence that killed five people. At a rally earlier in the day, Trump used visceral language, saying “we are not taking it anymore” and “you will never take our country back with weakness.”
It is not known whether impeachment managers plan to flag Trump’s tweet attacking Pence. In the tweet, which has now been removed from Twitter as part of Trump’s suspension from the platform, he criticized the then vice president for not blocking the counting of the electoral college results of the presidential election Trump lost.
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have happened,” Trump posted.
The tweet was posted about 10 minutes after it was reported that Pence had been taken off the floor of the Senate following the violent breach of the Capitol by Trump supporters and white supremacists. During the attack, members of the crowd could be heard to sing Hang Mike Pence.