Rep. Liz Cheney named vice chair of Jan. 6 committee
Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., on Thursday was named vice chair of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, prompting fresh calls for her ouster from the Republican caucus.
Cheney, a staunch critic of former President Donald Trump, will assist chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., on the Democratic-led panel, which has signaled it will aggressively probe the roles played by Trump and his allies in inciting the attack.
“Every member of this committee is dedicated to conducting a non-partisan, professional, and thorough investigation of all the relevant facts regarding January 6th and the threat to our Constitution we faced that day,” Cheney said in a statement accepting the leadership role.
Cheney vowed to back the probe’s effort to get to the bottom of the Jan. 6 attack, when thousands of Trump supporters overwhelmed police and marauded through the Capitol in hopes of blocking Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s election win.
“We will not be deterred by threats or attempted obstruction and we will not rest until our task is complete,” Cheney said.
The announcement sparked outrage from Cheney’s fellow Republicans, who said she and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois should be booted out of the GOP congressional caucus for accepting slots on the select committee.
Once a rising conservative star, Cheney was already voted out of her previous role as No. 3 Republican in the House of Representatives for refusing to tone down her public criticism of Trump, the de facto leader of the party.
“Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger must be thrown out of the GOP conference!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on Twitter.
—New York Daily News
Trump called Michigan GOP leader on election audit, co-chair says
LANSING, Mich. — Former President Donald Trump called Michigan Republican Party Chairman Ron Weiser about a potential audit of the state's 2020 election, the party's co-chairwoman, Meshawn Maddock, divulged at a GOP meeting over the weekend.
Maddock made the comments at the 14th Congressional District Republican Committee's picnic in Grosse Pointe Park on Sunday,according to a recording obtained by The Detroit News. The remarks indicate high-level consideration of an election audit quietly continues within the party 10 months after the November vote, and the former president has gotten involved.
Someone in the crowd asked during the event about the possibility of an audit that would reexamine the votes. The co-chairwoman referenced the controversial audit that the GOP-controlled Arizona Senate launched in Maricopa County. The results of that exercise have not been released publicly yet.
"President Trump called and spoke to Chairman Weiser, and they had a conversation," Maddock told the group, according to the recording. "And Chairman Weiser said that he's going to pay close attention to what happens coming out of Arizona.
"Arizona would only need, what,10,000 votes to change anything? Michigan would need 150,000. So I think it was a fair thing for the chairman to say to the president, 'Let's see what happens in Arizona and we'll look at it again.'"
Maddock said Weiser could simply voice support for an audit, but it would ultimately be up to the Republican-controlled Legislature to try to force one to happen.
During her comments, Maddock did not specify when the call with Trump occurred. In text messages Thursday, she didn't directly answer questions about the details of the conversation between Weiser and Trump but noted that she didn't see a Detroit News reporter at the Sunday event.
Michigan GOP spokeswoman Sarah Anderson said Weiser "doesn’t talk to the press about his private conversations."
—The Detroit News
Remington Arms seeks school records of slain Sandy Hook 1st graders. Families seek order to keep records private
The families suing Remington Arms over its marketing of the rifle used in the Sandy Hook School massacre want a court to order the gunmaker to keep confidential school records it has subpoenaed about five children and four educators who died in the 2012 attack in Newtown, Connecticut.
A lawyer for the families asked for the protective order in a motion dated Thursday, part of the ongoing argument between the families and the gunmaker over the relevance and confidentiality of records the parties are trying to collect as they prepare cases for the trial now scheduled in the coming weeks.
The latest salvo in the dispute was fired by attorney Joshua D. Koskoff, who represents estates of the nine, in response to subpoenas from Remington Arms to Newtown Public Schools for employment files of the four teachers, as well as the kindergarten and first grade educational records of Jesse Lewis, Daniel Barden, Dylan Hockley, Benjamin Wheeler and Noah Pozner — the five schoolchildren for whom claims have brought in the case.
The Remington subpoena demands, among other things, the children’s “application and admission paperwork, attendance records,transcripts, report cards, (and) disciplinary records.” Koskoff’s motion called the gunmaker’s subpoenas an irrelevant invasion of privacy and asks presiding Judge Barbara Bellis to expand a previously issued confidentiality order to include “private educational, employment and medical records and information.”
The Sandy Hook families have been fighting in court for years to obtain Remington marketing materials they believe will prove that the company violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act with a campaign to persuade civilians to buy what it knew was a weapon designed for military use.
—Hartford Courant
