Liz Cheney doesn’t view House Jan. 6 committee as ‘political’

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming says serving as former President Donald Trump’s chief accuser on the House Jan. 6 panel is the most important thing she will do in her life.

Speaking to The New York Times, the Republican — who’s been alienated from her party for her fierce anti-Trump rhetoric — said she doesn’t view her role “through a political lens.”

“I look at it through the angle of: People need to understand how dangerous he is and how unfit for office he is,” Ms. Cheney said. “I believe this is the most important thing I’ve ever done professionally, and maybe the most important thing I ever do.”

Ms. Cheney is one of two Republicans on the nine-member House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and Mr. Trump’s actions that day.

She is a staunch conservative but has become a liberal hero of sorts beginning with her vote to impeach Mr. Trump for inciting the riot and then for unleashing sharp critiques on Mr. Trump in the Jan. 6 hearings.

Mr. Trump says the Jan. 6 panel is a political witch hunt designed to blunt his political fortunes. He’s called Ms. Cheney “despicable” and hopes she is ousted in an upcoming congressional primary in Wyoming.

Ms. Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, said she views Mr. Trump as an existential threat to America. She said former Vice President Mike Pence was in grave danger because the ex-president castigated Mr. Pence while his supporters stormed the Capitol.

“Every time I see it, it brings to mind the image of Jimmy Scott, the Secret Service agent who evacuated my dad down the steps,” Ms. Cheney said, referring to the man who ushered her father out of the West Wing and into an underground bunker as a hijacked airplane headed toward Washington on Sept. 11, 2001. “That evacuation was because Al Qaeda was targeting Washington, D.C., and Mike Pence was evacuated because a violent, armed crowd that Donald Trump had sent to the Capitol was invading the Capitol.”