WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney paid a shock go to to the Capitol on Thursday, as Democrats in Congress solemnly marked the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
The former vp informed reporters he was there to help his daughter, Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican who’s vice chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack. But he additionally needed to come to Washington to commemorate the darkish day.
“It’s an necessary historic occasion. You cannot overestimate how necessary it’s,” Dick Cheney stated earlier than he and his daughter entered the House chamber for a second of silence.
There, it was starkly apparent what number of Republicans shared the previous VP’s view of the day’s significance: Save for the 2 Cheneys and an aide, each seat on the Republican half of the large chamber was empty.
Over the previous 12 months, Liz Cheney’s willingness to condemn former President Donald Trump for his position in inciting the lethal revolt, and her refusal to downplay its significance, have made her a pariah inside her celebration.
On Thursday, as Democrats held occasions across the Capitol all day, Republicans had been absent.
Paper statements
No Republican senators attended a separate commemorative occasion held within the Senate, and Liz Cheney was the one elected member of the GOP who attended the morning session within the House.
A number of Republican senators launched written statements that acknowledged the tragedy of a day when 1000’s of Trump supporters breached the capitol in a failed try to stop the Senate from formally certifying President Joe Biden’s election win over Trump.
“A 12 months later, the unhappiness and anger of understanding that it was Americans who breached the middle of our democracy, to thwart certification of a lawful election, stays with me,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska stated in an announcement.
“We ignore the teachings of January 6 at our personal peril. Democracy is fragile; it can not survive with out leaders of integrity and character,” learn an announcement by Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) departs Senate Republican coverage luncheons on the Russell Senate Office Building on April 29, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Stefani Reynolds | Getty Images
Murkowski and Romney had been among the many 7 Republican senators who voted final 12 months to convict Trump when he was impeached for inciting the attack, and the one ones to launch public statements on Thursday.
The different 5 who voted to convict had been Maine’s Susan Collins, North Carolina’s Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.
Collins and Cassidy briefly addressed the anniversary of the attack this week in interviews with native media. Sasse gave the Omaha World-Herald an announcement emphasizing that the violent try to overturn the 2020 election had been a failure. Neither Burr nor Toomey publicly marked the anniversary.
Elsewhere, Republican leaders lambasted Democrats for the occasions, alleging the celebration was utilizing the anniversary as a “political weapon” with which to attack Republicans.
“The actions of that day had been lawless and as incorrect as incorrect might be,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wrote in a letter to his caucus earlier within the week. But he additionally claimed that Democrats had been “utilizing it as a partisan political weapon to additional divide our nation.”
Former Vice President Dick Cheney seems on as his daughter Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., takes the oath of workplace on the House flooring on Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017.
Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
For the elder Cheney, who served within the House for a decade within the Nineteen Eighties, a lot of the fault lies with GOP leaders.
“I’m deeply upset we do not have higher management within the Republican Party to restore the Constitution,” Dick Cheney stated on the Capitol Thursday.
The chief of the GOP
While McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell function the elected leaders of the Republican celebration, it’s Trump — who doesn’t maintain an official place — who wields probably the most energy over the GOP caucus.
Over the previous 12 months, Trump and his shut allies have labored to create a false, different model of what occurred on Jan. 6. In this model, the marchers who beat Capitol Police officers bloody and demanded that Vice President Mike Pence be hanged are patriots and heroes, not rioters.
On Thursday, Trump echoed that view, issuing a sequence of statements repeating his false claims in regards to the 2020 election, which he misplaced to Biden by greater than 6 million votes.