Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) skewered Donald Trump on Tuesday at a hearing of the House Jan. 6 committee, saying it’s absurd to paint the ex-president as an “impressionable child” who didn’t fully know he lost the 2020 election.
That’s been the latest defense strategy from Trump’s allies, said Cheney, who serves as the vice chair of the House committee investigating Trump’s attempts to subvert democracy. No longer denying key facts uncovered by the committee, she said, Trump’s allies are claiming he “was manipulated by others outside the administration, that he was persuaded to ignore his closest advisers and that he was incapable of telling right from wrong” after losing the election.
“This, of course, is nonsense,” Cheney said. “President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices.”
Some of the witnesses who’ve spoken to the committee have attempted to blame Trump lawyer John Eastman, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) for influencing the ex-president’s actions.
But based on the committee’s findings, there’s no question Trump understood he was asking authorities to hand him an election he had lost, Cheney said.
“As our investigation has shown, Donald Trump had access to more detailed and specific information showing that the election was not actually stolen than almost any other American, and he was told this over and over again,” Cheney said. “No rational or sane man in his position could disregard that information and reach the opposite conclusion, and Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind.”
Her remarks came during the committee’s seventh hearing on the matter. It’s expected to hold at least one more hearing this month.