OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Rep. Liz Cheney on Sunday appeared to rule out any live broadcast of former President Donald Trump’s appearance under oath before the House January 6 Committee.
In an appearance with “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd, the Wyoming Republican — who will be leaving Congress in January after being blown out during her August primary by Trump-backed Harriet Hageman — claimed that the reason Trump would not be deposed live is that he would turn the proceedings into a sideshow.
“The committee treats this matter with great seriousness,” Cheney told Todd. “And we are going to proceed in terms of questioning the former president under oath.
“It may take multiple days, and it will be done with a level of rigor and discipline, and seriousness that it deserves. We are not going to allow the former president … He’s not going to turn this into a circus. This isn’t going to be, you know, his first debate against Joe Biden and the circus and the food fight that became. This is a far too serious set of issues,” Cheney said.
WATCH:
The committee voted unanimously last week to subpoena Trump, in order to compel his testimony under oath.
Some analysts took that to mean that the committee just doesn’t want the public to hear many of the former president’s answers regarding his activities on the day of the January 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building.
Joe Saunders at The Western Journal writes:
They also know just how flimsy the whole case is for their grandiosely named Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. They know that the game has been rigged from the beginning when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s selections for the committee and appointed Cheney and fellow turncoat Adam Kinzinger as “Republican” representatives.
They know that the committee has no substantive cross-examination, no adversarial system aimed at bringing out the truth. They know the whole thing is a sham, a showboat of a process that literally brought on a high-powered producer from the entertainment world of television to make its product more palatable to the American people.
And they know that a scenery-chewing performance by Donald Trump — himself a former reality television star — would not only be meeting them on their own terms, but he would also be doing it with the arguments at his back.
Cheney was brutally mocked by late-night Fox News host Greg Gutfeld after the committee voted to subpoena Trump. In his show monologue earlier this month, Gutfeld said that Cheney and the other committee members are simply focused on Trump because the Democrat-controlled Congress has no answers for the country’s problems, including inflation, rising crime, a chaotic southwestern border, and ongoing supply chain shortages.
“Just 25 days before the midterms, the Jan. 6th panel votes unanimously to subpoena Trump. That’s about as surprising as the final score at a Harlem Globetrotters game, and it’s about as spontaneous as Adam Schiff’s face. Does that make sense? No,” he said.
“And what a coincidence, it happens the same day the inflation number comes out, and it’s higher than Hunter Biden on free crack day. Crime is exploding like a can of Sprite left in a freezer too long,” he continued.
“The borders are as open as the West Wing’s windows when Joe forgets his Lactaid pills. Kids are getting dumber, and I have to walk over a drugged-out zombie just to get to work. ‘So why not? Let’s go after Trump,’ screams the Dems. This guy’s been in more fake trials than the cast of Law and Order,” Gutfeld said to laughs from the audience.
“But the hope is the news cycle will shift from Biden’s disasters to the orange monster who can make Adam Kinzinger cry like he’s cutting onions while his nuts are —-. Terrible,” he joked.
“So will this distraction overwhelm the public enough that they’ll forget it costs 100 bucks to fill up a tank of gas or 15 bucks for a pack of hot dogs? You heard right, Joy Behar’s lunch costs 15 bucks. Fifteen bucks is true, for a pack of dogs. Did someone blow up the Oscar Mayer pipeline, too?” he quipped. “Can’t the president tap into our tube steak reserves?”
