Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

by Liz Cheney

and threaten and motivate others to carry out violent acts—does not just slowly fade into the background. He must be defeated.

21 of my fellow Republicans voted against a bill awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to police officers who defended the Capitol, and the families of these police officers wanted to know why. There was no honorable answer to that question.

We expected that the investigation’s executive-privilege fights would land in the Supreme Court—which they ultimately did.

December 21, 2020, White House meeting where President Trump’s plan for overturning the election was discussed with at least 11 members of the House.

Around this time, campaign consultants who worked for me began to receive threats, including from Kevin McCarthy’s political operation, that they would be blackballed by all other Republican campaign entities if they continued to work for me. I was proud of and grateful for the handful who stayed with me, regardless of the McCarthy threat. One consultant told me he had lost business and friends—but at least he could sleep at night.

Fox settled the Dominion

litigation for $787 million.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.”

The court also concluded that our committee would have been entitled to the presidential documents even if Donald Trump were the sitting President.

there is already substantial additional evidence that Trump was acting intentionally, making false statements to motivate his supporters and to raise money from them.

Ultimately, we received highly credible testimony from multiple witnesses with firsthand knowledge on almost all the key issues. All Americans can comb through the transcripts of our interviews, which we released online, and reach their own judgments.

a note written by Lincoln on August 23, 1864, when he thought he was likely to lose the upcoming presidential election to General George B. McClellan. If McClellan prevailed, Lincoln believed McClellan would seek an armistice with the Confederacy,

essentially recognizing the independence of the Confederate states. Lincoln wrote, in part: This morning as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the President-elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such grounds that he cannot possibly save it afterwards. When he finished writing it, Lincoln folded the note, sealed it, and took it into a Cabinet meeting. He asked each member of his Cabinet to sign the outside of the document. The memo was Lincoln’s pledge to respect the will of the people and the outcome of the election—and to do everything in his power to help his successor if he lost. The note was also a reminder of how monumentally critical Lincoln’s reelection was. Everything depended upon it.

We recognized that each hearing would require a careful, fact-based presentation. And each would rely on testimony from Republican officials and Republican witnesses.

I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.

Efforts to find fraud, overseen by lawyers for the Trump campaign, had uncovered no fraud sufficient to overturn the election in any state.

At the close of our June 16 hearing, Judge Luttig described the prevailing state of affairs this way: “Donald Trump and his allies… are a clear and present danger to American democracy.”

We had intentionally structured our hearings around dozens of unimpeachable witnesses: Donald Trump’s own supporters, his own appointees, his own advisers.

Margaret Thatcher, said this: “Let it never be said that the dedication of those who love freedom is less than the determination of those who would destroy it.”

our job was not to grandstand or gloat, but to create a “thorough historical record” that all Americans could understand.

In our nation’s 246-year history there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward—a real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big. I know it. He knows it.

Our great nation must not be ruled by a mob provoked over social media.

Donald Trump is also now attacking, and endangering, the Department of Justice lawyers prosecuting him.

American freedom is precious and rare, and active vigilance is required from all of us to defend it.

Our nation is barreling, once again, toward crisis, lawlessness, and violence. No American should support election deniers for any position of genuine responsibility, where their refusal to follow the rule of law will corrupt our future. Our nation is young in the history of mankind and yet we’re the oldest democracy in the world. Our survival is not guaranteed. History has shown us over and over again how poisonous lies destroy free nations.

There was no doubt about it: In the days leading up to January 6, and on that morning itself, the Secret Service was receiving warnings about the potential for violence—and the White House personnel interacting with them knew it. They knew.

The White House knew more than enough to cancel President Trump’s Ellipse speech on January 6. They knew more than enough to realize that sending the Ellipse crowd to the Capitol could be exceptionally dangerous. This was obviously a disaster waiting to happen. Rational people in the White House—or a rational president—easily could have prevented it.

I would invite anyone who still harbors doubts to read the Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, and in particular to download and read the November 29, 2022, recorded examination by Chief Investigative Counsel Tim Heaphy of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Ornato. They knew.

Donald Trump has repeatedly said he blames Ashli Babbitt’s death on the Capitol Police. Yet if anyone other than Ashli Babbitt is responsible for her death, it is Donald Trump. She died trying to keep Donald Trump in office. She died because she believed Donald Trump’s lies. Donald Trump could have and should have put a stop to all of this before she died. This was his responsibility.

One thing was now unavoidably apparent to any objective observer: Donald Trump had demonstrated that he is unfit for any office.

t]he brave men and women of the Capitol Police, the Metropolitan Police, and all the other law-enforcement officers who fought to defend us that day saved lives—and our democracy.”

In a just world, the January 6th Select Committee investigation, and the criminal prosecutions that have now followed, would be the end of a dark period in our nation’s history. The man who mobilized a violent assault on our Capitol—who attempted to overturn an election and seize power—would have no political future. Donald Trump and those who aided him would be scorned and punished. But as I write this in the fall of 2023, Trump is running for president of the United States once again, and he holds a sizable lead among Republican contenders. Today, none of us can tell if the story of January 6 is nearing its end or is only just beginning. We may have many darker

chapters ahead.

Donald Trump meant what he said. He actually intended to achieve the most extreme things he was suggesting. And on the morning of January 6, 2021, he believed that his schemes would allow him to continue in the presidency despite having lost the election.

Trump has told us that he thinks the Constitution can and should be suspended when necessary, that what happened on January 6 was justified, that in a second Trump presidency he would seek retribution. And much more. Some have suggested that “the normal U.S. checks and balances” of our constitutional system would constrain Trump. They won’t.

We the people must stop them. We are the only thing that can stop them. This is more important than partisan politics. Every one of us—Republican, Democrat, Independent—must work and vote together to ensure that Donald Trump and those who have appeased, enabled, and collaborated with him are defeated. This is the cause of our time.