US President Biden awards the Presidential Medal to Trump critic Liz Cheney | News about Donald Trump

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

In total 20 awarded were recognized ua ceremony at the White House on Thursday.

They included an activist who led the campaign to legalize same-sex marriage in the US, an army doctor who improved battlefield trauma care and a civil rights leader who laid the groundwork for desegregation.

“The most important title in America is not president, but citizen. It is ‘We the People,’” Biden said, quoting the preamble to the US Constitution. “These are the words of the rock on which this entire nation is built.”

But several former MPs who received recognition were specifically praised for their work on the House committee tasked with investigating the January 6 attacks.

One of the recipients was the chairman of the committee, Democrat Bennie Thompson of Louisiana. The second was his vice president, a former Republican representative Liz Cheney from Wyoming.

A standing ovation greeted Cheney on stage at the White House on Thursday, as the announcer praised her “for taking the American people out of the party.” Thompson, meanwhile, was praised for his “lifelong commitment to preserving our Constitution.”

What is January 6th?

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

The The attack on January 6 was fueled by Trump’s false claims that he had won the 2020 presidential election.

That day, Trump held a “Stop the Steal” rally outside the White House, repeating baseless allegations of voter fraud.

Thousands of his supporters then traveled several blocks west to the US Capitol, where they attacked police and stormed the building as Congress certified the election results.

Lawmakers were evacuated and rioters were heard shouting threats such as “Hang Mike Pence,” a reference to vice president who supervised the verification of votes.

As of November 2024. US Department of Justice reported that 1,561 people have been charged with federal crimes stemming from the riots. A total of 645 of them were sentenced to prison terms.

The agency noted that firearms, tasers, knives, axes and pepper spray were among the weapons that the insurgents brought to the Capitol during the Jan. 6 attack.

Biden has previously awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to Capitol Police officers and election workers who received threats ahead of the 2020 election, including Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss.

“It was an honor to introduce the law enforcement officers who defended our Capitol on Jan. 6 and the state and local election officials, elected leaders, who defended a free and fair election in 2020,” 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 uprising — 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 post from 2017 to 2021, when he was succeeded by Biden, the winner of the 2020 race.

In the months following the January 6 riots, the House of Representatives voted to convene an independent investigation board investigate the circumstances of the attack.

The commission was finally disbanded in 2023 when the House of Representatives switched from Democratic to Republican leadership. But in its final weeks, the commission announced a damning, 850-page report with the recommendation of criminal charges against Trump.

It accused him of “multiple conspiracies” to nullify the results of the 2020 elections.

“The main cause of January 6 was one man, former President Donald Trump, followed by many others,” the report said. “None of the events of January 6 would have happened without him.”

Cheney was one of only two Republicans on the committee. Both have since left office. Cheney lost the party primaries while her Republican counterpart, Adam Kinzinger, did not run for re-election at all.

She and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, have since become visible critics Trump, even supporting his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, in the 2024 presidential race.

In an interview with NPR in December 2023, Cheney accused Trump of transforming the Republican Party into a “cult of personality” and called him a threat to American democracy.

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

Meanwhile, Trump proposed the arrest of committee members on January 6, fueling fears of political retaliation.

“Honestly, they should go to jail,” he told NBC’s Meet the Press in December.

He repeatedly accused the commission, without evidence, of erasing or concealing evidence. “Cheney did something that is unforgivable, along with Thompson and the people in the unelected committee of political scumbags and, you know, freaks.”