US President Biden awarded Trump’s critic Liz Cheney with a presidential medal Donald Trump news

Outgoing President Joe Biden on January 6, 2021 awarded members of the congressional committee investigating the attack on the Capitol with the Presidential Citizens Medal, the second highest civilian award in the United States.

Total 20 honorary titles recognized in a ceremony Thursday at the White House.

They included an activist who campaigned for the legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States, a military doctor who improved battlefield trauma care, and a civil rights leader who pioneered desegregation.

“The most important title in America is not the president, but the citizen. This is “We the people,” Biden said, quoting the preamble of the US Constitution. “These are the words of the rock upon which the whole nation is built.”

But several former lawmakers honored have been publicly praised for their work on the House committee charged with investigating the January 6 attack.

One of the recipients was committee chairman Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Louisiana. The second was its deputy chairman, a former representative of the Republic Liz Cheney Wyoming.

Cheney was greeted by a standing ovation when he took the stage at the White House on Thursday, as the announcer praised him for “putting the American people before the party.” Meanwhile, Thompson was hailed for his “lifelong dedication to protecting our Constitution.”

What is January 6?

Cheney has become a political lightning rod since his years on the committee. He is a popular target of criticism for President-elect Donald Trump, the de facto leader of the Republican Party.

The January 6 attack He was boosted by Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election.

That same day, Trump held a “Stop the Stealing” rally in front of the White House, repeating baseless allegations of voter fraud.

Thousands of his supporters then marched a few blocks west to the US Capitol, where they attacked law enforcement and stormed the building as Congress ratified the election results.

Lawmakers were evacuated and protesters were heard shouting threats such as “Hang Mike Pence”. vice president who controlled the certification of the vote.

As of November 2024, the US Department of Justice informed 1,561 people were charged with federal crimes stemming from the riots. In total, 645 people were sentenced to prison terms.

The agency noted that firearms, assault rifles, knives, axes and pepper spray were among the weapons brought to the Capitol during the January 6 attack.

There is Biden previously awarded Presidential Citizens Medal to Capitol Police officers and election workers who have been threatened after the 2020 vote, including Ruby Freeman and daughter Drink Moss.

“On January 6, I am honored to introduce the law enforcement officers who are protecting our Capitol and the state and local election officials and elected leaders who are protecting the free and fair 2020 election,” Biden said at Thursday’s ceremony.

“Today we celebrate a new group of Americans who have dedicated their careers to serving our democracy in other important ways.”

Cheney vs. Trump

Thursday’s medal ceremony came just days before the fourth anniversary of the riots and less than three weeks before Trump himself takes office for a second term. He will be sworn in on January 20.

Trump previously held the position from 2017 to 2021, when he was replaced by Biden, the winner of the 2020 race.

A few months after the January 6 riot, the House of Representatives voted to convene an independent investigative body. committee looking at the circumstances surrounding the attack.

The commission was ultimately abolished in 2023 when the House of Representatives transitioned from Democratic to Republican leadership. But in the last weeks, the commission a damn, 850 page report recommends opening a criminal case against him Trump.

He accused him of a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the results of the 2020 elections.

The report says: “The main reason for January 6 was former President Donald Trump, who many people followed. “None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”

Cheney was one of two Republicans on the committee. Both have since resigned. While fellow Republican Adam Kinzinger did not seek re-election at all, Cheney lost in the party’s primary.

He and his father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, have been around ever since visible critics even Trump’s supporting his Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the 2024 presidential race.

In a December 2023 interview with NPR, Cheney accused Trump of turning the Republican Party into a “personality cult” and called it a threat to US democracy.

“He’s talking about weaponizing the levers of our government against his political opponents,” Cheney said on the NPR program, Fresh Air. “I don’t look at it so much through the lens of what it means to me personally. But I think that this means for the republic that we will no longer be a republic.”

Meanwhile, Trump proposed to arrest the members of the January 6 committee. provokes fears of political revenge.

“Honestly, they need to go to jail,” he told NBC’s Meet Me in December.

He has repeatedly accused the committee of deleting or hiding evidence without proof. “Cheney, along with Thompson and the people on the unelected committee of political thugs and creeps, did something unforgivable.”