Liz Cheney and the 14th Amendment Strikeout thumbnail

Liz Cheney and the 14th Amendment Strikeout

By Dan Brophy

Editors’ Note:  As the charade of the January 6th hearings continue, readers need to appreciate how deeply flawed the process is, and how some Republicans gave cover to radical Democrats so that a patina of required bipartisan representation could be maintained. But the main Republican in question, is a biased as the Democrats. For us in Arizona, this is not fully appreciated, hence we appreciate the perspective of someone familiar with Wyoming politics.

Washington DC’s very own congressman “from Wyoming” has told us that Donald J Trump tried to overthrow the US government and, under provisions of the 14th Amendment, he must be banned from ever running for public office. Heck, maybe prosecuted for sedition! She knows all this because she was there in the House chambers on January 6, 2021. You weren’t, so you don’t know. In her world of the Elites of the Imperial City, her accusation equals guilt. Period, end of discussion.

Madam Attorney Cheney incessantly lectures us dim Wyoming voters that “it’s the Constitution”. You see, we are all ignorant. President Trump had no right to claim the election was stolen (it was, and he did). He had no right to attempt in January 6 proceedings in the House to refer a number of disputed state election results to their respective legislatures (he absolutely did).

When the January 6th riot occurred, this woman, who for years so energetically encouraged US intervention in overseas conflicts, experienced what’s probably the first flicker of fear in her sheltered life. Eager to send tens of thousands of soldiers into combat, where they experience real fear and some die, her personal exposure to potential violence sure did not sit well with her. How much sympathy did she express for the victims of hundreds of riots throughout the country during 2020? None. She brays that she is the defender of the People’s House, but as for your house, your family’s safety, your business, she could care less.

From election day 2020 through the Biden inauguration in January 2021, Cheney told us the courts heard and dismissed election fraud claims. She knows this is false. Numerous courts were presented with claims, and all were turned down for procedural reasons – generally “lack of standing”. No court heard evidence (there are reams of it from numerous states). It’s worse today, 14 months later: to my knowledge, not a single federal court has yet reviewed a single piece of evidence. Strikeout, Liz.

I learned recently that, on January 6, Republican teams in the House and Senate were prepared to present evidence of fraud – state by state – in 12-hour congressional sessions. Cheney knew it all along. The riot disrupted those plans. How convenient. Somehow I never heard Cheney mention these facts. No doubt because this makes her false claim about evidence look….well… false. Strikeout, Liz.

She tells us she “voted her conscience” to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection” on January 13, seven days before the end of his term. The Constitution she claims to respect sets a due process expectation and standard for ANY citizen. A House colleague of hers, a friend of mine who sits on Judiciary, confirmed to me that the entire impeachment process took under 7 hours, from the first hearing until the impeachment vote. 7 hours! President Trump had no opportunity to present a defense. For Cheney, once again, the accusation is the conviction, and evidence be damned. If that’s “the Constitution” and “conscience” then the Nazi Josef Mengele was a physician following the Hippocratic oath. Strikeout, Liz.

Now Cheney sits on Pelosi’s Select Committee to investigate January 6th. An investigation is a deliberate process of pursuing facts. But she and her colleagues will see to it that Committee finds President Trump guilty of “insurrection”. Did I miss the exchanges of gunfire? The artillery barrages of the rebels hitting the Capitol? The takeover of radio and TV stations in DC? Does she care that, among all the accused rioters, not a single firearm was found? No, she doesn’t. Strikeout, Liz.

She accepted an appointment by House Democrat leadership as vice-chair of the Committee. The Committee has no minority party (Republican) representation, meaning it has no authority under the rules of the House to proceed with its work, much less issue subpoenas. Her sense of fair process, including the right of persons under investigation to have advocates among the ranks of the Committee, simply does not exist. She applauded when Pelosi expelled Reps. Jordan and Banks as Republican members of the Committee. She remained on the Committee even when Republican leadership, realizing the Committee’s mission is not an objective inquiry but an inquisition rightly withdrew all Republican nominations. This violates House rules; nothing of the sort has ever happened in US history. Strikeout, Liz.

Hundreds of January 6 protestors languish in jail for months, many in conditions befitting Soviet gulags: 23 hours/day locked down in their cells; denial of attorney and family visits; denial of phone calls; retribution for getting these conditions into the public eye.  Lacking medical care and good nutrition, and even suffering beatings. Most have families, none have criminal records. Biden officials call them “domestic terrorists”, but not a one has been charged with insurrection. Does Cheney ask about their treatment? No. Let them rot. Strikeout Liz.

Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the chairman of the Committee (Cheney is Vice-Chair) supported a radical secessionist group responsible in the late 1960s for cop shootings and at least one officer murder. The group was found storing arms and explosives. He has never renounced this association. Cheney has never mentioned it, objected to it, or criticized him. He’s her valued ally because he hates Trump too. Strikeout, Liz

The Committee’s tactics are appalling, dishonest, vicious. Demanding documents from anyone remotely associated with President Trump (under threat of criminal indictments), it vacuums up private records of hundreds of innocent people. She and her Democrat colleagues know the man, so they will find the crime. Member Adam Schiff (D-CA) was caught altering text messages of Rep. Jordan – a felony offense in any jurisdiction other than the Sewer that Congress has become. While busy calling January 6 protestors terrorists, Pelosi refuses to release her communication records related to the security arragements for the Capitol for that day. Cheney says nothing. Strikeout, Liz.

Over two hundred years ago, President George Washington first invoked executive privilege, a doctrine repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court that protects former presidents from political prosecution following their term in office. That principle protected Dick Cheney’s vice-presidential records from partisan examination by his many enemies. Just as it should protect President Trump’s records and in the future, President Biden’s records. She doesn’t care about two centuries of valid precedent. She’ll burn it all down to “get Trump”. So what the heck, let’s sift through her dad’s records – we’ll find something there we can use against someone!

Attorneys trying to defend some of the accused “rioters” have asked for release of 14,000+ hours of video recordings collected within the Capitol during the event. These demands have all been denied under the ridiculous claim that the videos are classified information. The few hours of video released by the intervention of the courts show police allowing protesters to enter the Capitol, and protestors being brutally beaten in the tunnel entrance to the Capitol. The death of Roseanne Boyland, a “police riot”, was falsely described by the DC medical examiner as an “overdose”. Video shows her struck dozens of times by one police officer (he has been identified), using a hard stick or baton. She finally collapsed underneath a crowd packed in the tunnel. Witnesses who tried to help her say she was unconscious and was trampled to death. Will Cheney demand release of the thousands of hours of video? Or an investigation of Ms. Boyland’s death? Will she insist that defense attorneys have access to all those hours of video, giving them a reasonable chance to find exculpatory evidence for their clients? Nope. She does not care. Strikeout, Liz.

Cheney is at the center of abuse after abuse of rights, process, and the Constitution. Strikeout after strikeout.

The work of two diligent investigative reporters, Darren Beattie (Revolver News) and Julie Kelly (American Greatness), is destroying the false “insurrection” narrative. Now Cheney’s Committee claims they interviewed Ray Epps, whose name is now prominently in the news as an instigator of the riots. We are simply to accept their word that Epps is not a federal agent-provocateur. But no flip assurance from her or the dishonest Committee staff can answer the obvious question: how did Epps drop off the list of the “Most Wanted” January 6 protestors without being arrested like 700 other people? Her underhanded game is just about up. Mr. Beattie cleverly but accurately labeled January 6 as the “fedsurrection”. Cheney’s “insurrection” looks increasingly like a setup engineered by multiple federal agents in the crowd. If you trust her and her Committee to dispassionately seek the truth, you trust Iran’s leaders with nuclear bombs.

When Cheney appeared on the Wyoming scene in 2014, she passed out the book “Cowboy Ethics” at her early fundraising events. We still have a copy on our living room table. We assumed the book meant she lived by the principles in the book, the old “Code of the West” that demands strict integrity in one’s life, never betraying trust, and fair play. Now we know the book was a prop for her. She mouthed its principles to get elected, but in fact, she lives by the opposite code of corrupt Washington.

For five years, she deceived us and every Wyoming Republican, including her opponent Harriet Hageman. We all should have understood that someone who can raise hundreds of thousands of campaign dollars with a few phone calls, would harbor loyalty to DC interests, not to Wyoming voters. Research her resume – it couldn’t be more clear that she advanced through DC circles using the contacts of Daddy’s Little Girl. Now we find that she accepts funds from The Lincoln Project, a false-front “Republican” organization that has worked for years to undermine the Trump agenda. Stooping even lower, it turns out that our “warrior for the Constitution” accepted an award from a Chinese Communist-affiliated group.

Washington is not “the Swamp”. It is a putrid Cesspool. Dishonor and dishonesty permeate the Committee. Dishonor cloaks Liz Cheney. She was elected to bat for us, her constituents. Turns out she bats for the opposite team. She is the worst of Washington. Her dishonorable conduct demands her removal from office, public shaming, and her humiliating defeat.

*****

The article was first published by Wyoming.net and is reproduced with permission from the author.