Liz Cheney, the soon-to-be former representative from Wyoming who’s acting as Nancy Pelosi’s puppet on the Jan. 6 committee, told “Meet the Press” on Sunday the committee has no intention of giving former President Donald Trump a platform to address the country.
Responding to a lay-up question by lapdog “journalist” Chuck Todd about the potential for Trump testimony before the committee, which subpoenaed Trump last week, Cheney ruled out any kind of live appearance for the 45th president.
But Cheney being Cheney these days, she couldn’t give an honest answer for why that is.
She told Todd the committee did not want to give Trump the chance to turn the committee proceedings into a “food fight” but there was a much more obvious answer — one a Democrats’ toady Chuck Todd would never explore.
Check it out here:
“The committee treats this matter with great seriousness,” Cheney told Todd. “And we are going to proceed in terms of the questioning the former president under oath.
“It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline and seriousness that it deserves. We are not going to allow the former president … He’s not going to turn this into a circus. This isn’t going to be, you know, his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that that became. This is a far too serious set of issues.”
Yeah, well, let’s sum all that up in two words: They’re terrified.
The members of the committee — very much including Liz Cheney — know damn well that Trump is an enduringly popular figure among conservatives and Republicans — or roughly half the population of the United States. Cheney herself was trounced in the August Republican primary for Wyoming’s congressional seat because of her Ahab-obsession with getting Trump.
They also know just how flimsy the whole case is for their grandiosely named Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. They know that the game has been rigged from the beginning, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s selections for the committee and appointed Cheney and fellow turncoat Adam Kinzinger as “Republican” representatives.
They know that the committee has no substantive cross-examination, no adversarial system aimed at bringing out the truth. They know the whole thing is a sham, a showboat of a process that literally brought on a high-powered producer from the entertainment world of television to make its product more palatable to the American people.
And they know that a scenery-chewing performance by Donald Trump — himself a former reality television star — would not only be meeting them on their own terms, he would be doing it with the arguments at his back.
The committee has been peddling the fiction that what took place on Jan. 6 was an “insurrection” fomented by the then-president that put “American democracy” at risk. It was nothing of the kind. Regrettable as the moment might have been, it was a passing storm, no more capable of destroying the constitutional republic established by the Founders than any Black Lives Matter riot — and a good deal less costly.
So far, the committee has been shielded by the all-too-accommodating mainstream media (see Todd’s performance, for example) and the combination of indifference and contempt its proceedings have been viewed with by the segment of the country that’s not obsessed with Trump Derangement Syndrome.
A Trump appearance — even the word of a Trump appearance — would destroy that. It would also galvanize the large part of the country that supports Trump, what his presidency meant to the American public and what he means to the Washington establishment.
Cheney being Cheney couldn’t admit that. And Chuck Todd being Chuck Todd couldn’t pursue it.
But plenty of social media users saw right through Cheney’s act, particularly the line about not wanting to turn the committee’s proceedings into a “circus.”
Cheney: Trump won’t be allowed to turn Jan. 6 testimony into "circus" https://t.co/CEUjUjfBEQ pic.twitter.com/bo2M60xvfk
— The Hill (@thehill) October 23, 2022
That "Jan 6 Commission" has been a circus from the beginning – nothing about it has been correct or legal. Hear-say allowed as testimony — "witnesses" not cross examined. Twisted questions. Fake evidence. False answers. Just propaganda — all of it.
— MJR (@rMaryJane) October 23, 2022
Transparency Lizzy, what do you have to worry about? President Trump doesn’t have a problem with it, why do you?
— Bdelao (@delaobd1) October 23, 2022
Too late @RepLizCheney , you have been the jester in this clown show.
— GoodDaySunShine (@GoodDaySunbun) October 23, 2022
(Whether Trump actually would want to testify before the committee, live TV or no live TV, is another question. Reports that he would be willing to are sketchy at best at this point. Whether he should is a question for the former president and his lawyers.)
The committee’s work is scheduled end at the end of this year. And considering the likelihood that Republican’s will control the House of Representatives when the new Congress is sworn in January 2023, it’s a good bet the committee will be consigned to history.
Regardless, Cheney will out of office and her role as an influential figure in the Republican Party is at an end for now, and probably forever.
After leaving Congress and she’ll have a wealth of opportunities to show up and pontificate on the cable news networks — MSNBC and CNN would love to have her, no doubt.
Fox might even want her. Motorists, after all, rubber-neck when they’re driving by a car wreck on the interstate.
But as far as a Republican influence goes, she’s heading right down there with Florida Republican-turn-independent-turned-Democrat Charlie Crist, who is now challenging the Sunshine State’s Gov. Ron DeSantis in an all-but-doomed effort.
No matter where Cheney ends up, like Crist, she’s going to be shilling for the anti-Trumpers on the right while giving aid and comfort to the opposition on the left.
If the past decade of American politics has proven anything, it’s that predicting a future is a job for a fool.
But here’s one bet that’s as rock solid as Mount Sinai: Members of the Jan. 6 committee and Donald Trump will never appear on live television together.
Cheney, Kinzinger and their Democratic allies are simply too terrified.