Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) wants the Justice Department to prosecute former President Donald Trump if it finds evidence related to his involvement within the Jan. 6 attack.
Cheney, vice chair of the Jan. 6 House select committee, weighed in on whether a possible prosecution could add to Trump’s political clout with supporters.
“The query for us is: Are we a nation of laws? Are we a rustic where nobody is above the law? And what do the facts and the evidence show?” Cheney told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on Thursday. “And positively, I’ve been very clear, I feel he’s guilty of probably the most serious dereliction of duty of any president in our nation’s history.”
Cheney also referenced a California federal district judge who said Trump, along along with his former attorney John Eastman, more likely than not had committed crimes related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. She said the Jan. 6 committee would offer an opinion on criminal referrals to the Justice Department but added that any prosecution was ultimately as much as the DOJ.
“Understanding what it means if the facts and the evidence are there, they usually determine to not prosecute: How will we then call ourselves a nation of laws? I feel that’s a really serious, serious balancing,” Cheney said.
Watch a clip from the interview below:
Trump’s lawyers have reportedly been in contact with the DOJ and were told that indictments were “possible,” sources told CNN.
Cheney, who’s running for re-election against a Trump-backed opponent, gave the CNN interview on the identical day her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, called Trump a “coward” in an ad for her reelection campaign.
