Elizabeth Cheney was always a Republican. A blue blood Republican if there ever was one. Her father was Secretary of Defense under George H. W. Bush and Vice-President under George W Bush. She was one of the Republicans in the House of Representatives who voted along with Trump more than almost any other member of Congress. She was as loyal a Republican as you could get. But eventually, after January 6th she realized she could not support Trump any more. Her country was more important to her than her party.
Cheney spent months working on the House of Representatives listening to sworn testimony and weighing mountains of evidence of what happened on January 6th at the Capitol in Washington. During that time she learned a lot about Trump. Most of it was bad.
Elizabeth Cheney, one of only 2 Republicans on the Congressional Committee said this in her opening statement at the Select Committee Hearings:
“t 6:01 p.m. on January 6th after he had spent hours watching a violent mob besiege, attack and invade our Capitol Donald Trump tweeted that he did not condemn the attack. Instead, he justified it. This was an early tweet after many hours of doing nothing to stop the rampage:
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever.”
President Trump believed his supporters at the Capitol “were doing what they should be doing.” This is what he said to his staff as they pleaded with him to call off the mob, to instruct his supporters to leave…Aware of the rioters chants to hang Mike Pence the president responded with there words: “Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserved it.”…On this point there is no room for debate–those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President Trump had told them, that the election was stolen and he was the rightful president. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack…All Americans should keep in mind this fact: On the morning of January 6th President Donald Trump’s intention was to remain president of the United States despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election and in violation of his constitutional obligation to relinquish power. Over multiple months Donald Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated 7-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the transfer of presidential power.
For hours Trumped refused to do what his staff and family and others begged him to do as police officers defending the Constitution and the Capitol and the political leaders and their support staff while they were obviously fearing for their lives. He resisted. He thought the rioters were doing the right thing. He appreciated their zeal in his cause. He was indifferent about the costs. All that mattered was what he wanted.
As Cheney said before the House Select Committee, even though Trump and his team knew the election had been lost
“he engaged in a massive effort to spread false and fraudulent information to convince huge portions of the US population that fraud had stolen the election from him.”
Bill Barr repeatedly told President Trump that he saw no evidence of fraud sufficient to overturn the election. He also added during the Senate House Select Committee hearings that a year and half later he hasn’t seen anything to change his mind on that either. We must remember that Barr was Trump’s loyal Attorney General. Many critics felt he was so loyal he allowed the Justice Department to act as Trump’s person law firm, not the purpose for which that department was created. He said there was zero evidence that the voting machines had been tampered with even though such allegations had been made in such a sensational manner that there was a large part of the American population that believed they were evidence of systemic problems in the system. They believed their votes did not count. They believed that not because they were given any evidence of that, they believed that because members of “their side” told them this was the case, even though it was not true. As Barr said to Congress, “this was complete nonsense…and crazy stuff that they were wasting their time on that and it was doing a great disservice to the country.”
Yet a substantial part of the American public believed this “nonsense” and “crazy stuff.” That is what happens when a credulous populace is confronted with unsubstantiated claims by their leader. They believe their leader no matter how nonsensical his claims and in this case, they were indeed nonsensical.
Trump continued to spread these false allegations at least a dozen times after his Attorney General told him there was no basis in fact for those allegations. None of that mattered to Trump. All that matter is what he believed even though there was no evidence to support those beliefs. Trump has never been concerned about evidence. He just cares about belief. He has been spreading those lies ever since.
After William Barr dealt dismissively with the claims of Trump that the voting machines were fraudulent and he realized that Trump would not change his mind no matter how often Barr told him there was no supporting evidence or information of fraud, Barr put it this way when he gave evidence to the Select Committee,
“I was somewhat demoralized because if he really believes this stuff he has lost contact with, he has become detached from reality. On the other hand when I told him how crazy some of these allegation were, there was never any indication of interest in what the actual facts were.”
This is precisely the point. Trump actually had no interest in the truth. None at all. He was only interested in what reinforced his narrative that the election was stolen. Absolutely nothing else mattered.
Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump when confronted with what Barr had said, told the Capitol investigation this: “It affected my perspective. I respected Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he said was said.”[2] Another long standing loyal Trump supporter admitted that her father was wrong about a stolen election.
Barr knew Cheney well. And Cheney knew Trump well. So did his daughter Ivanka.