Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) appears to have employed the January 6 committee meeting as a political weapon against her primary challenger.
It’s no secret that Liz Cheney’s career as a mainstream Republican went south when she sided with the Democrats in the January 6 witch hunt. Since then, Harriet Hageman, Cheney’s main opponent, has been outpolling her by a landslide and now leads by 30 points. After a dismal first hearing for the January 6 committee, which drew just 19 million viewers across the United States, Liz Cheney has subpoenaed former Trump campaign manager William Stepien, who is also Harriet Hageman’s campaign adviser.
According to the Hill, Stepien testified before the committee last November, taking part in former President Trump’s “Stop the Steal” campaign:
The committee alleged that Stepien “supervised the conversion” of Trump’s campaign around “Stop the Steal” messaging and fundraising.
The committee said that the campaign’s communications “promoted certain false claims about voting machines, despite an internal campaign memo in which staff concluded such claims were untrue.”
The former president Trump held a campaign rally for Hageman in late May, where he referred to Cheney as a “backstabbing” RINO.
“The horrible Democrats are nothing compared to the backstabbing RINO Republicans who enable them to do their terrible act,” Trump added. “And there is no RINO in America that has put her faith in the extreme left more than Liz Cheney.”
To this end, Trump remarked that Cheney was a “lapdog for Pelosi and a human soundbite machine for MSDNC and CNN,” among other things.
“She has gone mad,” the former commander-in-chief declared. “Now I understand. For years, I’ve been hearing these stories. Now I get it. She’s entirely insane now.”
Given that few Americans are tuning in for the broadcast, it is doubtful the Stepien subpoena will affect Liz Cheney’s primary campaign against Hageman, especially since no bombshell surprise is expected at the next hearing. According to a recent article from Axios, some Democrats in vulnerable seats have expressed reservations behind closed doors.
“I believe they’re significant, but I wouldn’t call them crucial to the election,” Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) stated about the hearings.
When asked whether January 6 should be a campaign topic, one unnamed Democrat in a toss-up district responded simply, “No.” Despite the fact that the Democrat hoped the hearings might provide “a lot of valuable information” or a “holy shit moment.”
