(Washington Insider Magazine) -On Thursday, former Vice President Dick Cheney made a surprise visit to the Capitol as Democrats in Congress commemorated the one-year commemoration of the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.
According to CNBC, the former vice president was in attendance to support his daughter, Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, who serves as vice chairperson of the House Select Committee probing the January 6 terrorist attack. But he also decided to visit Washington to mark the anniversary of the tragic day.
There, it was clear how many Republicans agreed with the former vice president’s assessment of the day’s significance: almost every seat on the Republican side of the enormous chamber was vacant except for the two Cheneys and an adviser.
Liz Cheney has become an outcast within her own party as a result of her readiness to accuse former President Trump for his participation in fueling the violent insurgency and her unwillingness to dismiss its significance over the past year.
Republicans were conspicuously absent on Thursday as Democrats hosted gatherings all over the Capitol.
There were no Republican senators present for a separate remembrance event in the House, and Liz Cheney was really the only elected Republican in the House who attended the session in the morning.
A few House republicans issued statements acknowledging the tragedy of the day when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to stop President Joe Biden’s election victory over Trump from being properly certified by the Senate.
Murkowski and Romney were two of the seven Republican members who voted to convict Trump for encouraging the attack on the capitol when he was impeached last year, and they were the only ones to make public remarks on Thursday.
Susan Collins of Maine, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska were the other five senators who voted to convict.
In appearances with local media this week, Collins and Cassidy commented on the anniversary of the incident briefly. Sasse issued a message to the Omaha World-Herald underlining that the violent plot to reverse the 2020 election had failed. Neither Burr nor Toomey made a public commemoration of the anniversary.
Republican leaders have slammed Democrats for the activities, accusing them of exploiting the anniversary as a “political weapon” to bash Republicans.
“I’m deeply disappointed we don’t have better leadership in the Republican Party to restore the Constitution,” Dick Cheney stated at the Capitol on Thursday.
