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 the panel has seen a change in how witnesses and lawyers in the Trump orbit approach the committee and are now defending the former president by blaming the "crazies" surrounding him.
"Initially, their strategy and some cases appeared to be to deny and delay," Cheney said. "Today, there appears to be a general recognition that the committee has established key facts, including that virtually everyone close to President Trump, his Justice Department officials, his White House advisors, his White House counsel, his campaign, all told him the 2020 election was not stolen."
Cheney said the new strategy appears to be that he was manipulated by outsiders from the administration, such as lawyers John Eastman or Sidney Powell or Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and others, suggesting that "he was incapable from telling right from wrong."
"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."
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"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 was not stolen than almost any other American, she said.
"And he was told this over and over again," Cheney added.
This is a live update. Click here for complete coverage of the Jan. 6 hearings.
