And that’s a coup (so to speak) for the committee. It gives the proceedings significantly more than a veneer of bipartisanship. This isn’t just Democrats trying to take down a Republican former president; this is the once-rising-star product of one of the GOP’s first families. The committee clearly wants its evidence to do the talking — including testimony from Trump allies. When they feel the need to be more explicit about connecting the dots, they have Cheney.
And in laying out the committee’s plans on Thursday night, one message from Cheney was unmistakable: She’s presenting her party with a fork in the road.
Cheney’s most striking comment came in the form of a stark warning to her party: “Tonight, 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.”
But it wasn’t the only time in her statement that Cheney set up a binary choice. Repeatedly, she contrasted Trump with his vice president, Mike Pence, and the latter’s actions on and comments about Jan. 6. She invoked Ronald Reagan’s comments about a peaceful transfer of power. And she described a divide in Trump aides between those who tried to do the right thing and those who lacked the courage.
She played a clip of Pence saying in February, in no uncertain terms, that Trump’s plot to have Pence overturn the election on Jan. 6 was wrong. Pence said there was “no idea more un-American.”
Pence hasn’t pressed the case, except for when it couldn’t really be avoided. But Cheney did, and seems happy to do it again. She held up Pence as a beacon — a conservative Republican who ultimately did the right thing when called upon.
And Pence didn’t just decline to go along with Trump’s desperate ploy, she said: He acted to quell the unrest in a way Trump didn’t.
“Not only did the president refuse to tell the mob to leave the Capitol; he placed no call to any element of the United States government to instruct that the Capitol be defended,” Cheney said. “He did not call his secretary of defense on January 6th. He did not talk to his attorney general. He did not talk to the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump gave no order to deploy the National Guard that day and he made no effort to work with the Department of Justice to coordinate and deploy law enforcement assets. Then-Vice President Pence did each of those things.”
She played a clip of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley describing Pence issuing “very explicit, very direct unambiguous orders.” Milley said Pence was “very direct, very firm to [acting Defense] Secretary [Christopher] Miller: Get the military on it, get the Guard down there, put down this situation, et cetera.”
This juxtaposition will surely be revisited. One of these men did what a president should do in such situations; it’s just that it was the guy with “vice” in front of his title, while the other guy did nothing about the violence.
And not only did the president do nothing; he seemed to revel in it. Perhaps the other big moment from Cheney’s opening statement was when she peered into the black box that is Trump’s actions during the riot. She confirmed reporting that the committee had evidence that Trump responded callously to the mob targeting Pence and even suggested he approved of their aims.
“You will hear that President Trump was yelling and, quote, ‘really angry at advisers who told him he needed to be doing something more,’ ” she said. “And aware of the rioters chants to hang Mike Pence, the president responded with this sentiment: Quote, ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence, quote, ‘deserves it.’ ”
But it wasn’t just Pence — there was also the split in White House advisers.
“When a president fails to take the steps necessary to preserve our union or worse causes a constitutional crisis, we’re at a moment of maximum danger for our republic,” she said. “Some in the White House took responsible steps to try to prevent January 6th. Others egged the president on. Others who could have acted refused to do so.”
The subtext: Which of those do you want history to remember you as being aligned with? Cheney would soon lodge her “dishonor will remain” warning.
At the conclusion of her opening statement, Cheney offered perhaps the most subtly important choice for her party. She referenced our country’s history of peaceful transfers of power — something Reagan in 1981 labeled “nothing less than a miracle.”
And then she challenged her party to choose Reagan over Trump.
“The sacred obligation to defend this peaceful transfer of power has been honored by every American president, except one,” Cheney said. “As Americans, we all have a duty to ensure that what happened on January 6th never happens again, to set aside partisan battles, to stand together to perpetuate and preserve our great republic.”
In other words, as Reagan might say, a time for choosing.
