You don’t read a book like former Wyoming U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney’s tell-all looking for literary pearls.
You read it to find out what was going on behind the scenes in Congress after the 2020 election, as Donald Trump’s Republican sycophants and enablers schemed with him to overturn the results of a legitimate U.S. election. You read it to remember just how feckless Trump was when he was in power, and to remind yourself exactly what he is capable of should the nightmare of a second Trump term come to pass.
Oh, and of course you read it because who could ever tire of revelations about former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s spinelessness and treachery? God, what a snake. No, strike that. Snakes actually have spines.
After forcefully blaming Trump for Jan. 6, McCarthy went to Mar-a-Lago to suck up to the former president, Cheney writes in “Oath and Honor,” because he needed money. Nearly every major corporate donor had threatened to withdraw support from Republicans who voted to object to the Electoral College votes. Because McCarthy’s only real political skill was fundraising, she says, he was desperate for access to Trump’s extensive lists of small-dollar donors. “In order to use those lists,” she writes, “Kevin would have to help Donald Trump cover up the stain of his assault on our democracy.”
Like many who lean left politically, I have no enduring affection for the Cheney family. Imagine my surprise, then, when a tear actually sprang to my eye for a moment after reading about a particularly charged moment between Liz and her father on New Year’s Day 2021.
On Dec. 26, 2020, The Washington Post’s David Ignatius had written a column with a warning about Trump’s postelection plotting. Shortly after he lost, Trump had fired senior Defense Department officials and installed loyalists in their place, an unprecedented move by a lame-duck president. Was he stacking the military deck in order to invoke the Insurrection Act and stay in office?
A delegation of senior Republicans, wrote Ignatius, should pay a visit to Trump and tell him in no uncertain terms that he’d lost. There were two problems, however, as Cheney writes. First, not enough senior Republican officials would be willing to risk Trump’s wrath, and second, it was clear that urging Trump to do anything against his self-interest would be futile.
Father and daughter came up with a plan: Dick Cheney was a former Defense secretary, so together they would reach out to the nine other living former secretaries of Defense and ask them to sign a public letter urging a peaceful transition of power.
As Liz Cheney prepared to return to Washington from Wyoming in January 2021, her father gave her a hug, and then, she wrote, “He looked at me and with steel in his voice, said, ‘Defend the republic, daughter.’ ”
“I will, Dad,” she replied. “Always.”
Unlike many of Cheney’s critics, I see nothing self-important or self-serving here. Liz Cheney is one of the few heroic, high-profile Republicans who were willing to do the right thing after the 2020 election, even if it meant sacrificing her job.
On Jan. 6, 2022, one year after the attack by deeply misguided Trump supporters, there was a small ceremony and a moment of silence on the House floor. Only two Republicans showed up: Liz Cheney and her father.
The following month, Cheney and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, the two Republicans who served on the House Jan. 6 committee, were censured by the Republican National Committee for “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”
Cheney, as always, was unbowed. “I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump,” she responded at the time. “History will be their judge.”
In her book, she reflects on the moment: “The resolution reflected a political party that had lost its principles and, frankly, seemed to be led by morons.”
Sadly, it still is.
