Liz Cheney Quotes

Our duty is clear: every one of us who has sworn the Oath must act to prevent the unraveling of our democracy. This is not about policy. This is not about partisanship. This is about our duty as Americans. Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar. I will not participate in that. I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the Rule of Law, and joins the former President's crusade to undermine our democracy.

I would urge all of those watching today to focus on the evidence the committee will present. Don't be distracted by politics. This is serious. We cannot let America become a nation of conspiracy theories and thug violence. Finally I want to thank our witnesses today for all of your service to our country. Today America will learn about the selfless actions of these men and women who acted honorably to uphold the law, protect our freedom and preserve our Constitution. Today Mr. Chairman we will all see an example of what truly makes America great.

The great and original champion of our party, Abraham Lincoln, was defeated in elections for the Senate and the House before he won the most important election of all. Lincoln ultimately prevailed, he saved our Union and he defined our obligation as Americans for all of history. Speaking at Gettysburg of the great task remaining before us, Lincoln said, "That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and a government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth." As we meet here tonight that remains our greatest and most important task.

I want to begin by thanking Ms. Hutchison for her testimony today. We are all in her debt. Our nation is preserved by those who abide by their oaths to our Constitution. Our nation is preserved by those who know the fundamental difference between right and wrong. I want all Americans to know that what Ms. Hutchison has done today is not easy. The easy course is too hide from the spotlight -- to refuse to come forward, to attempt to downplay or to deny what happened.

Our duty today is to our country and our children and our constitution. We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion, and every American is entitled to those answers — so we can act now to protect our republic. So this afternoon, I am offering this resolution: that the committee direct the chairman to issue a subpoena for relevant documents and testimony under oath from Donald John Trump in connection with the January 6th attack on the United States Capital.

One of the things we see happening is a sort of sleepwalking into a dictatorship in the United States.

Most of world history is a story of violent conflict of servitude and suffering. Most people in most places have not lived in freedom. Our American freedom is a providential departure from history. We are the exception. We have been given the gift of freedom by God and our founding fathers. It is said that the long arc of history bends toward justice and freedom. That's true, but only if we make it bend. Today, our highest duty is to bend the arc of history to preserve our nation and its blessings to ensure that freedom will not perish, to protect the very foundations of this constitutional republic. Never in our nation's 246 years have we seen what we saw on January 6. Like so many Americans, I assumed that the violence and the chaos of that day would have prompted a united response, a recognition that this was a line that must never be crossed. A tragic chapter in our nation's history, to be studied by historians to ensure that it can never happen again. But instead, major elements of my party still vehemently defend those who caused it. At the heart of the attack on January 6 is a willingness to embrace dangerous conspiracies that attack the very core premise of our nation. That lawful elections reviewed by the courts when necessary, and certified by the states and Electoral College, determined who serves as president. If we do not condemn the conspiracies and the lies, if we do not hold those responsible to account, we will be excusing this conduct, and it will become a feature of all elections. America will never be the same.

I rise to discuss freedom, and our Constitutional duty to protect it. … I have been privileged to see firsthand how powerful and how fragile freedom is. Twenty-eight years ago, I stood outside a polling place, a schoolhouse in western Kenya. Soldiers had chased away people who were lined up to vote. A few hours later, they came streaming back in, risking further attack, undaunted in their determination to exercise their right to vote. In 1992, I sat across a table from a young mayor in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, and I listened to him talk of his dream of liberating his nation from Communism. Years later, for his dedication to the cause of freedom, Boris Nemtsov was assassinated by Vladimir Putin's thugs. In Warsaw, in 1990, I listened to a young Polish woman tell me that her greatest fear was that people would forget: they would forget what it was like to live under Soviet domination, that they would forget the price of freedom. Three men — an immigrant who escaped Castro's totalitarian regime, a young man who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and became his country's Minister of Defense, and a dissident who spent years in the Soviet Gulag — have all told me it was the miracle of America, captured in the words of President Ronald Reagan, that inspired them. And, I have seen the power of faith and freedom. I listened to Pope John Paul II speak to thousands in Nairobi in 1985, and 19 years later, I watched that same Pope take my father's hands, look in his eyes, and say "God bless America." God has blessed America, Mr. Speaker, but our freedom only survives if we protect it. If we honor our Oath, taken before God in this chamber, to support and defend the Constitution. If we recognize threats to freedom when they arise. Today, we face a threat America has never seen before: a former President, who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol in an effort to steal the election, has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him. He risks inciting further violence. Millions of Americans have been misled by the former President. They have heard only his words, but not the truth, as he continues to undermine our democratic process, sowing seeds of doubt about whether democracy really works at all.

The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.

At the very outset of our hearings, we described several elements of President Trump's multipart plan to overturn the 2020 election. Our hearings have now covered all but one of those elements, an organized campaign to persuade millions of Americans of a falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen by widespread fraud; a corrupt effort to pressure Vice President Pence to refuse to count electoral votes; an effort to corrupt the US Department of Justice; efforts to pressure state election officials and legislators to change state election results; a scheme to create and submit fake electoral slates from multiple states. And today, you saw how President Trump summoned a mob to Washington for January 6th, and then knowing that that mob was armed, directed that mob to the United States Capitol. Every one of these elements of the planning for January 6th is an independently serious matter. They were all ultimately focused on overturning the election, and they all have one other thing in common. Donald Trump participated in each, substantially and personally. He oversaw or directed the activity of those involved.

These text messages leave no doubt: The White House knew exactly what was happening here at the Capitol

In late November of 2020, while President Trump was still pursuing lawsuits, many of us were urging him to put any genuine evidence of fraud forward in the courts and to accept the outcome of those cases. As January 6th approached, I circulated a memo to my Republican colleagues explaining why our congressional proceedings to count electoral votes could not be used to change the outcome of the election. But what I did not know at the time was that President Trump’s own advisors, also Republicans, also conservatives, including his White House counsel, his Justice Department, his campaign officials, they were all telling him almost exactly the same thing I was telling my colleagues: There was no evidence of fraud or irregularities sufficient to change the election outcome. Our courts had ruled. It was over. Now we know that it didn’t matter what any of us said because Donald Trump wasn’t looking for the right answer legally or the right answer factually. He was looking for a way to remain in office.

In our hearing tonight, you saw an American president faced with a stark, unmistakable choice between right and wrong. There was no ambiguity, no nuance. Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office, to ignore the ongoing violence against law enforcement, to threaten our Constitutional order. There is no way to excuse that behavior. It was indefensible. And every American must consider this: Can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6th ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?

I don't believe that we have the luxury of writing in candidates' names, particularly in swing states," Cheney said. "As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this. And because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.

The U.S. does not torture; in fact, what holds up the release from Guantanamo is getting a guarantee from their governments that they won't be tortured. Guantanamo and prisons in Afghanistan are completely consistent with international obligations. Just because the Geneva Convention might not technically apply does not mean that America does not treat people with the spirit of the convention. . . . While we are doing things militarily in the war on terror, we are also spreading hope and opportunity so that the young people do not become recruits for the terrorists.