Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

by Liz Cheney

the officer had no choice, and that his action saved lives: He had to take someone’s life but in return he probably saved a whole bunch of people’s lives. And that is a difficult thing for anybody to do that’s never been in those situations… I commend that guy… that’s why I hugged him. I said “Sir, you did what you had to do.”

People died on January 6 because of Donald Trump’s lies. Had it not been for the actions of courageous members of law enforcement, many more lives likely would have been lost.

WHILE THE HOUSE CHAMBER WAS being evacuated, Mike Pence and his family were rushed from his office on the Senate side of the Capitol into a basement garage. The mob was hunting the vice president and chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” Donald Trump poured gasoline on the flames, tweeting at 2:24 p.m.: Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!

The Capitol offices of both Speaker Pelosi and Leader McCarthy had been breached by the mob. A frightened Kevin McCarthy had begged President Trump to stop the violence. When that didn’t work, he had appealed to Trump’s adult children, also begging for their help. None of those efforts succeeded.

Across the room, another member of Congress was dismantling a stanchion, apparently preparing to use the brass rod as a weapon, should it come to that. There were no televisions in the main room, but members were getting information and updates on their phones and from their families.

were bringing police officers wounded in the day’s combat with the Trump mob. He said it was devastating. Scores of law-enforcement officers had been seriously injured. Mullin described their injuries in detail: broken bones, deep lacerations, an officer whose eye had been gouged by the mob, others who had been attacked with bear spray, pepper spray, and other irritants. The ongoing violence had blocked ambulances from reaching the casualties and transporting them to hospitals. It was sickening.

At 4:17, as the interview was underway, the White House tweeted out a video that President Trump had finally recorded three hours after the attack began. Savannah broke in to play the video. I was hearing it for the first time live on the air. This is what President Trump said: I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us—from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election. But we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace.

On the night of January 6, law-enforcement officers in tactical gear were seated on the floor, leaning up against every statue and all around the walls of the room, exhausted from the battle they had fought to defend the Capitol. I walked around the room thanking them for what they had done. One said to me, “Ma’am, I fought in Iraq and I have never encountered the violence I did out there today.”

Despite the brutal violence, destruction, and death at the Capitol, despite the fact that Donald Trump’s lies—the same lies Republicans were telling to justify the objections—had mobilized the mob and caused the attack, McCarthy was going to let the travesty go on. Kevin McCarthy lacked the courage and the honor to abide by his oath to the Constitution. This wasn’t leadership. It was cowardice, and it was craven. I wanted no part of it. I got up and walked out of the House chamber.

A few hours later, shortly before 4:00 a.m., Congress completed the counting of electoral votes: Joe Biden had defeated Donald Trump by a count of 306 to 232. The mob had not prevailed, but the danger wasn’t over. The January 6 attack was an assault on our constitutional republic. As Congress finished our work early on January 7, President Trump still had not condemned the attack or committed to leave office.

Images of the attack on the US Capitol sparked horror around the world. I heard from many friends and colleagues overseas—people I had worked with during my time at the State Department.

Terrorists couldn’t shake the foundations of our republic, but what if an American president refused to guarantee the peaceful transition of power? What if he attempted to overturn an election in order to stay in power, ignored the rulings of the courts, mobilized a violent mob, and provoked them to attack and invade the Capitol? An American president willing to do those things was a threat unlike any we had ever faced before—a direct threat to the foundations of our republic.

Among leadership—at least at that time—there was no question that Donald Trump was culpable for January 6. The focus of our discussion was what the potential solution should be. We discussed the options we knew the Democrats were considering: impeachment; urging Trump to resign; or asking Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which authorizes the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to determine that the president is no longer capable of discharging the duties of his office.

I also reminded people that Vice President Pence had been in the Capitol with his wife and daughter while the mob was hunting him. During that time, Trump had attacked Pence on Twitter. Pence was a former House member, and many of our colleagues knew him well.

Indeed, some of the biggest corporate donors—companies such as McDonald’s, Nike, Boeing, Wells Fargo, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Marriott—had begun announcing that they would no longer contribute to members who had voted to object.

A few months later, Clyde—who had been photographed trying to help barricade the doors on January 6 to stop the violent mob from invading the House chamber—said the day had looked just like “a normal tourist visit.”

This was unambiguous. The Republican bill called January 6 a “domestic terrorist attack” because that’s what we all believed it was. Most of us had witnessed it firsthand. And we had since seen public footage of the horrific violence against police. I told my colleagues: “The mob on the steps of the Capitol got hold of a police officer… and dragged him down the steps, beat him. You watch that and it’s like Mogadishu.” I was referencing Somalia’s capital city, where members of the US military had been killed in 1993 and their bodies dragged through the streets. There was no question in my mind that there would be a major investigation into everything that had happened, and I said so.

Beutler confronted Boebert next: “Is it true that you were live-tweeting from the floor our location to people on the outside as we were being attacked, Lauren?” By then, we all knew Boebert had provided updates, including announcing when Speaker Pelosi was evacuated from the House floor. “Don’t ask us about security,” Herrera Beutler said, “if you’re telling the attackers where we are.”

The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution. I will vote to impeach the President. Later that

Kevin also said something that everyone who was present on January 6 already knew: “Some say the riots were caused by Antifa. There’s absolutely no evidence of that, and conservatives should be the first to say so.”

Adam Kinzinger never wavered in his commitment to put country over party in recognizing the danger Donald Trump posed. He issued some of the most prescient warnings throughout this dangerous period, including telling the Republican Conference

My vote to impeach Donald Trump is occasionally portrayed as if I were standing alone in opposition to my party. I wasn’t. Nine other Republicans stood with me, all for essentially the same reasons.

McCarthy’s motive became clear a few days later when, on January 28, he visited Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. Three weeks after the attack on the US Capitol, the Republican Leader of the House of Representatives was prostrating himself before the man responsible for January 6. 20.

The truth was pretty simple. Kevin McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago because his ability to raise money had dried up after January 6 when nearly every major corporate donor announced it would stop making campaign contributions to Republicans who had voted to object to the Electoral College votes. Kevin’s strength in our conference was derived largely from his fundraising ability. He was not a policy expert or a natural leader. And now his strength was gone.

AROUND THE TIME OF KEVIN McCarthy’s Mar-a-Lago pilgrimage, members of the Freedom Caucus began circulating a petition to recall me from my leadership position for having voted to impeach Donald Trump.

“We cannot become the party of QAnon,” I said. “We cannot become the party of Holocaust denial. We cannot become the party of white supremacy. That can never be us. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln and of Ronald Reagan. We believe above all else in fidelity to the Constitution.”

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio used Parler to instruct his members to “turn out in record numbers” on January 6, 2021, but to conceal who they were: “We will not be wearing our traditional black and yellow. We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown DC in smaller teams.”

We discussed the cult of personality that had captured our party. This was something America had never experienced before. I asked Condi if she could think of any historic examples of countries successfully throwing off cults of personality. “Not without great violence and upheaval,” she said. In

Some of my colleagues thought they could just be silent and Donald Trump would simply fade away. Mitch McConnell believed this, but I knew it to be false. It was wishful thinking.

said—people I met with were willing to reconsider their embrace of Trump’s lies. Others remained defiant and angry. It can be tough to learn that you’ve been fooled, tricked by those you trusted. That you let yourself be deceived. The natural reaction is denial, and a refusal to listen to anything to the contrary.

I often think of those hundreds of January 6 rioters who have been convicted or pled guilty—men and women who sacrificed their freedom and their futures for an outright lie. Some now recognize that they wasted years of their lives for a falsehood. But for others, not even a jail sentence has diminished their support for Donald Trump.

vitally important we uncover everything that happened on January 6 and share it with the American people. Millions of Americans were drowning in ridiculous lies. They had no idea what actually happened—why it was wrong, why it was so destructive for our country. There had to be an investigation. 29. SELECT COMMITTEE ONCE THE

My dad understood what was at stake. He knew how dangerous it would be for the country if the Republicans whitewashed what had happened, or succeeded in blocking an investigation into the events of January 6. He believed that serving on the Committee was the right thing—the only thing—to do.

We may have disagreed on pretty much everything else, but Nancy Pelosi and I saw eye to eye on the one thing that mattered more than any other: the defense of our Constitution and the preservation of our republic.

she backed me up. Every time. A relationship that had been unimaginable just a few months earlier would now become indispensable. In short, this was a whole new world.

The mob brought weapons to try to accomplish their insurrectionist objectives. They used them against us. These weapons included hammers, rebars, knives, batons, and police shields taken by force, as well as bear spray and pepper spray.… I could feel myself losing oxygen, and recall thinking to myself, This is how I’m going to die, defending this entrance.

Officer Dunn recounted racial slurs being hurled at him by the rioters as he fought to defend the United States Capitol Building. Images from that day had shown members of the mob that invaded the Capitol wearing anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi insignia.

more than a few of the Republicans leaned over and quietly said some version of You’re doing great. Thanks for standing up and doing what’s right. I appreciated the support, but I couldn’t help thinking that each of them could be speaking out as well.

My decision had not been driven in any way by politics, and I told her so: “No… I watched while the attack was underway—understood very clearly what he did on January 6th, what he failed to do on January 6th. Instead of stopping the attack while it was underway, he was busy calling up senators, trying to get them to delay the [electoral] count. So there was no calculation; I think he’s very dangerous.”

We learned later that Bannon also had information about Trump’s plans even before the 2020 election and that Trump had planned in advance—before a single vote was counted—to lie about the election being stolen. In other words, Trump’s plan was premeditated.

On October 21, 2021, the House of Representatives voted to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress. Nine Republicans supported the resolution. Scarcely three weeks later, the Department of Justice indicted Bannon. He was tried during the summer of 2022, convicted, and sentenced to four months in federal prison. As of the fall of 2023, his case was still on appeal.

BY THE FALL OF 2021, it was becoming clear that Mark Meadows would likely also refuse to testify. We might need to pursue contempt for him as well.

I doubted that Meadows would ever say no to Donald Trump. My experience with Mark further led me to believe that he would say whatever Trump told him to say about January 6.

Was Mark Meadows really so afraid of Donald Trump that he would lie to his own lawyer? And, if so, what exactly was he trying to hide?

Mark Meadows had important information, including about a crucial area of our investigation—what exactly Donald Trump had been doing for 187 minutes while the Capitol was besieged by rioters on January 6. Mark Meadows had sent and received a long series of text messages directly relevant to that topic. The texts left no doubt that those in the White House knew exactly what was happening at the Capitol. I began to read the messages from the dais: “We are under siege up here at the Capitol.” “They have breached the Capitol.” “Hey, Mark, protestors are literally storming the Capitol. Breaking windows on doors. Rushing in. Is Trump going to say something?” “There’s an armed standoff at the House Chamber door.” “We are all helpless.” Dozens of texts, including from Trump administration officials, pleaded for immediate action by the president: “POTUS has to come out firmly and tell protestors to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed” “Mark, he needs to stop this. Now” “TELL THEM TO GO HOME” “POTUS needs to calm this s*** down.”

Court documents including deposition testimony, as well as email and text exchanges, appear to indicate that Fox News hosts and executives knew the election-fraud claims were false, despite what Fox News was broadcasting to its viewers. Sean Hannity, for example, had reportedly testified that he never believed Trump’s claims that Dominion machines had stolen the election from Trump: “I didn’t believe it for one second.”

Testimony obtained by the Committee suggested that Meadows may have contacted both Flynn and Stone at Donald Trump’s request on the evening of January 5. Flynn and Stone had both been photographed with certain members of the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys. Of course, members of both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were directly involved in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, and a number of the leaders and members of these groups have since been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

After laying out all of these specific findings, the court reached a final conclusion: Dr. Eastman and President Trump launched a campaign to overturn a democratic election, an action unprecedented in American history. Their campaign was not confined to the ivory tower—it was a coup in search of a legal theory.…

I had publicly cited several key reasons why we needed Meadows’ testimony. But we had other reasons I did not mention at the time. Mark Meadows had written a book entitled The Chief’s Chief that was published in December 2021. It contained a number of intentionally false descriptions about what had happened on January 6.

Here is just one example of a deliberate Meadows falsehood from the book. Meadows claimed that Donald Trump had ordered 10,000 National Guard troops to be on standby for January 6. Meadows also suggested publicly that Donald Trump had given an order to deploy those troops. But when asked if that statement was true, Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller told the committee under oath: “Not from my perspective. I was never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature. So I was surprised by seeing that publicly.” Pressed again on whether Trump had ordered those 10,000 troops to be ready, the former acting secretary said, “There was no order from the President.”