President Joe Biden will award the second highest civilian honor, the Presidential Citizens Medal, to Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney and several other members of the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on the Capitol for their “exemplary deeds of service.”
Cheney, Representative Bennie Thompson (D., Miss.), and former senators Chris Dodd (D., Conn.) and Ted Kaufman (D., Del.) all served on the January 6 committee, which ultimately alleged that former president Donald Trump was guilty of inciting an insurrection and seeking to disrupt a peaceful transition of power. The three politicians helped lead the probe into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“Throughout two decades in public service, including as a congresswoman for Wyoming and vice chair of the committee on the Jan. 6 attack, Liz Cheney has raised her voice — and reached across the aisle — to defend our nation and the ideals we stand for: Freedom. Dignity. And decency,” the White House said in a statement. “Her integrity and intrepidness remind us all what is possible if we work together.”
Biden announced his awardees after Trump, now the president-elect, said in December that the seven House Democrats and two House Republicans on the January 6 committee “should go to jail.”
“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” Trump added.
Trump has also said that he will pardon January 6 prisoners immediately upon assuming the presidency.
“I’m going to be acting very quickly. First day,” Trump said last month. “They’ve been in there for years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
Biden is said to be considering preemptive pardons for members of the January 6 select committee before Trump’s inauguration.
An outspoken critic of Trump, Cheney described Vice President Kamala Harris as a “radical liberal” who “sounds just like Karl Marx” before campaigning for Harris to aid the Democrat’s presidential bid last year.
Thompson’s “steadfast commitment to truth” earned him the accolade, the White House said. Dodd and Kaufman are personal advisers of Biden’s. When Biden was a senator, he called Dodd his “single best friend” in Congress.
“President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others,” the White House said. “The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”