Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the Jan. 6 House committee investigating the Capitol riot, said at the opening of Tuesday’s hearing that Trump’s allies are now defending the former president by blaming the “crazies” surrounding him.
Their strategy changed with the recognition that virtually everyone close to Trump had told him the 2020 election was not stolen, said Cheney, of Wyoming.
“Now the argument seems to be that President Trump was manipulated by others outside the administration, that he was persuaded to ignore his closest advisors, and that he was incapable from telling right from wrong.” she said.
The new strategy is to try blame only lawyers John Eastman or Sidney Powell or Congressman Scott Perry or others, she said.
“In this version the president was, quote, poorly served by these outside advisors,” she said. “The strategy is to blame people his advisors called, quote, the crazies for what Donald Trump did.”
“This of course is nonsense,” she said. “President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices.”
Trump had access to more detailed and specific information showing that the election has not stolen than almost any other American, she said.
“And he was told this over and over again,” Cheney said.
