All posts tagged "peter welch"

Fox PAC gave big money to key Democrats in January

The political action committee for Fox Corporation, the parent company of conservative-boosting Fox News, gave $25,000 to Democratic candidates and causes in January alone, according to a Raw Story review of federal campaign records.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee received $15,000 from FOX PAC, and the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund received $5,000.

The campaign for Tom Suozzi (D-NY) — who last week won back his House seat vacated by embattled former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) — received $2,500 from the PAC. So did the campaign of Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT), who’s running for re-election in one of the most contested Senate races in the nation.

A $1,000 check for the campaign of Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) was voided.

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The $25,000 to Democratic causes is equal to the amount given to Republicans.

On the Republican side, the campaign of Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) received $1,000 and Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) got $1,500 for his campaign. The fundraising committee for California Assemblyman Vince Fong (R-CA), who is running for the seat vacated by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, received $2,500.

The Johnson Leadership Fund received $20,000 in combined funding to support House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA).

FOX PAC has often played both sides of the aisle with its money. But some Democratic candidates have declined FOX PAC donations of late, with the campaign committees of Reps. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX), Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Peter Welch (D-VT), former Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA) sending back $12,500 collectively in 2022, Business Insider reported.

In April, Fox News settled a $1.6 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems that alleged the network promoted former President Donald Trump's baseless claim that its voting machines were used to rig the 2020 presidential election that he lost to President Joe Biden, Raw Story reported. Fox agreed to a $787.5 million settlement.

Representatives for Fox News Media and the Fox Corporation PAC did not immediately respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, New Democrat Coalition Action Fund, Montanans For Tester, Suozzi for Congress and Scanlon for Congress also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump's America first agenda keeps angry Senate in session as Super Bowl plans upended

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators are doing something rare this weekend: Actually working.

Well, at least, some senators are. On Friday night only 83 of the Senate’s 100 members showed up for a late night vote, which is only compounding the tangible frustration at the Capitol as lawmakers have seen their schedules upended — including one senator who had to scrap her plan to attend the Super Bowl — over an internal GOP debate that’s now boiled over into public view.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is forcing his colleagues to stay in town this weekend and battle over a now $95.3 billion foreign aid package that includes funding for Taiwan, Israel and Gaza — a measure that included border security funding and reforms last weekend until the GOP killed that compromise measure — because Paul opposes the $60 billion in the measure earmarked for Ukraine.

Party leaders hoped to work out a time agreement to speed up debate, but Paul has employed his senatorial right to delay — a filibuster, of sorts — telling the press corps he won’t allow that until “hell freezes over.”

“So hell hasn’t frozen over yet?” Raw Story asked Paul as he left the Capitol on Friday evening.

“Nope,” Paul told Raw Story. “We're still waiting.”

“So we can expect Sunday?”

“I think it'll be Monday or Tuesday until we're finished,” Paul said. “I don't think we should easily allow people to send money to protect someone else's border when we're not willing to protect our own border.”

The Senate isn’t even scheduled to be in session this coming week — let alone this weekend — but senators' planned two-week long President’s Day recess is now delayed indefinitely because of Paul’s protest.

Paul’s last stand is a farce to many of his colleagues, including many of the 17 Republican senators who have advocated for the same isolationist — a.k.a. America first — agenda as Paul but didn’t even bother to show up to the Senate’s Friday night vote.


The Senate’s technically in session today, with some senators giving floor speeches to an empty chamber. But no votes are scheduled, so the Capitol’s quiet.

Senators are slated to come back to the Capitol Sunday afternoon for another procedural vote to keep the foreign aid measure moving, albeit slowly. It’s unclear if those 17 Republicans plan to play hooky from their duties, again, especially after at least one of the party’s private meetings this week devolved into a shouting match that left at least one senator reporting she was “pissed off.”

The GOP has been in disarray since House Speaker Mike Johnson and other prominent Republicans rejected a bipartisan border security compromise that took four grueling months to negotiate after Republicans demanded border funding be a part of any foreign assistance measure.

Johnson torpedoed the initial $118 billion measure with border funding, and on Tuesday the House defeated a $17.6 billion measure that would have only funded Israel after Johnson put it on the floor without measuring its support within his divided conference.

Since then, Speaker Johnson's failed to offer his party an alternative. That’s left his Republican allies in the Senate divided over how the party should proceed, because anything they pass has to be approved by the House eventually. That has Democratic senators all but rolling their eyes.

“We’re starting to look more like the House,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) complained to Raw Story as he was getting in his car Friday evening.

While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supported rank-and-file Republicans' initial calls for border funding, he’s now been left overseeing an internal GOP brawl as Republican senators fight over which measures the party wants to formally offer on the Senate floor as amendments to the broader aid package.

“There’s a division there. This is not about McConnell and his grip on the leadership. This is about a faction of new Republicans who think disrupting is progress,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story after casting another procedural vote on the foreign aid package Friday.

Democrats complain 2024 presidential politics have now engulfed the Capitol at the behest of the party’s presumptive nominee, former President Donald Trump.

“I’m sorry that we have Republicans that are standing with Donald Trump,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) told Raw Story while walking to her car Friday evening.

“He doesn't want to make a deal on the border, but he also wants to get [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky. Remember his first impeachment was because of what happened with Zelensky — that ‘perfect’ phone call?” Stabenow said. “So he could get Zelensky and help his buddy [Russian President Vladmir] Putin who he wants to help him in the election, again. And he gets all of that if this bill goes down.”

“Do you think that's part of it?” Raw Story inquired.

“I think it’s not ‘part of it’ — of the people holding this up, it’s like almost all of them. Almost all of them. It really is,” Stabenow said. “Everything they’re doing is for an audience of one: Donald Trump.”

The far-right, spurred on by Trump, is now targeting GOP senators who are voting with Democrats to send more assistance to Ukraine, which is rankling congressional Republicans who support American allies in Eastern Europe.

“It's unfortunate that they are not recognizing the challenges that the United States is facing right now — and that our friends and our allies are,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told Raw Story. “These are hard times that require, oftentimes, difficult decisions that can be complicated and complex. And so a knee jerk reaction, like calling people ‘traitors’ for trying to understand the full extent of what we have in front of us as a nation, nothing is that simple.”

Murkowski says she doesn’t personally blame Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

“I don't know. The way things have been going around here, if it wasn't Rand, it's probably gonna be somebody else,” Murkowski said. “To me, we ought to be able to figure out pathways forward on significant measures, like the one we have in front of us.”

It’s the Senate, so, of course, Paul and others have their defenders.

“Every senator’s got a right,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) told Raw Story. “You don’t get far in this place if you hold bitterness.”

“Are you mad at Rand Paul at all?” Raw Story asked on the Capitol’s steps.

“Well,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) replied through a deep breath and slight senatorial grimace.

Rosen has been an outspoken advocate of Las Vegas tourism, including the tens of millions of dollars the city is expected to rake in from hosting this weekend’s Super Bowl, which Rosen has a ticket for.

“So if there are votes on Sunday are you coming back?”

“I’m not leaving. You can’t get to Las Vegas and come back,” Rosen told Raw Story after voting on Friday evening. “Nope. We’re here.”

“Oh, so you can't even go?”

“No,” Rosen said through a laugh. “My husband's gonna have a great time.”

“That really sucks! I’m sorry.”

“It does,” Rosen told Raw Story. “It does.”

Hypocrisy alert: Senators who scorched Mark Zuckerberg love Meta money

Last week, senators put the CEOs of five social media giants each in the hot seat over accusations of their platforms’ negligence toward the sexual exploitation and online safety of children.

The hottest seat of all at a multi-hour Senate Judiciary Committee hearing belonged to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who a senator asked to stand up and publicly apologize to victims and parents in attendance holding photos of their children they say were sexually abused, bullied or committed self harm — many dying by suicide — related to exploitation on social media platforms.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the committee’s ranking Republican. “You have a product that’s killing people.”

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“With the touch of your finger that smartphone that can entertain and inform you can become a back alley where the lives of your children are damaged and destroyed,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“You, as an industry, realize this is an existential threat to you all if we don't get it right?” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) said. “We can regulate you out of business if we wanted to.”

“There is literally no plausible justification, no way of defending this,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said.

Yet, Graham, Durbin, Lee and Tillis are among more than a dozen senators who grilled Zuckerberg and his tech peers but also took donations from Meta’s political action committee, company executives, lobbyists, or a combination of all three, totaling more than $120,000 combined since 2017, according to a Raw Story analysis of federal campaign records.

Who took donations from Meta?

Raw Story reached out to the offices for 15 senators who spoke at the hearing and received donations from political action committees or leaders at Meta and other social media companies represented at the hearing, including TikTok, Snap, X (formerly Twitter) and Discord.

Raw Story asked: Would the senators return donations from these social media companies or refuse future donations?

Only three responded to Raw Story’s requests for comment.

Between late 2019 and mid-2023, Graham’s campaign committee, Team Graham, received at least $15,800 from the PAC and lobbyists for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, according to Raw Story’s review of records from the Federal Election Commission.


After a Nov. 7 Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law hearing with a Facebook whistleblower, Graham said he would refund the money his campaign received from Meta companies and other social media platforms, NTD reported.

Team Graham donated $16,000 and his Fund for America’s Future PAC donated $2,500 to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said Kevin Bishop, a spokesperson for Graham.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation confirmed it received Graham’s committed gift, which helped bring survivors to the hearing and “will continue to be used to bring survivors to meet with legislators across the aisle so survivors have a voice to educate policymakers on the impact of sexual exploitation and the scale at which it occurs online,” said Dawn Hawkins, CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, via an emailed statement.

“We aren't aware of any similar pledges made by other legislators,” Hawkins said, noting that the center supports bipartisan legislation including the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act (EARN IT) Act and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

“Graham made a pledge and he fulfilled that pledge,” Bishop told Raw Story via email.

Hawkins said Big Tech companies “know the harm they are facilitating” and “continue to shirk responsibility and roll out piecemeal and ineffective solutions,” particularly in relation to vulnerable populations such as those who identify as LGBTQ+.

“These companies continue to put the burden on overwhelmed parents despite having flawed and ineffective parental controls, and they ignore children without the privilege of involved, tech-savvy caregivers, when high-level corporate actions could better protect all children,” Hawkins said.

The social media companies don’t spend enough on child safety protocols either, Hawkins said, calling the CEOs unprepared for the hearing. To them, “investment in child safety is not a priority, but an afterthought,” she said.

Tillis’ campaign committee received at least $27,200 from current and former registered lobbyists for Facebook and Meta Platforms Inc PAC (previously known as Facebook Inc. PAC), between June 2017 and March 2023, FEC records indicate.


Lee’s campaign received at least $16,800 combined in donations from Meta (and formerly Facebook) PAC and a former Facebook lobbyist, as well as from an executive for ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, between September 2019 and June 2022. The vast majority of the funds were Meta-related, and one $2,500 check from Facebook PAC went uncashed, according to FEC records.

The campaign for Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) took in at least $17,100 combined from Meta and (formerly Facebook) PAC and Sheryl Sandberg, former COO for Meta, between March 2020 and December 2023, per federal records.

Durbin’s campaign received at least $11,300 between June 2019 and December 2021 from the Facebook and Meta PAC, and Sandberg, according to Raw Story analysis of FEC data.

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) received at least $7,900 from Facebook PAC and Sandberg between March 2017 and September 2018, per FEC records.

In 2017 and 2018, Facebook PAC and Sandberg combined to donate at least $7,700 to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), according to FEC records. Other Facebook lawyers donated to her campaign.

"Senator Klobuchar has long been the leading advocate for bipartisan competition and safety legislation that the tech companies have opposed. Any question of her integrity when it comes to tech can be refuted by the hundreds of millions of dollars they have spent on TV and in lobbying against her and her legislation,” said Ben Hill, a spokesperson for Klobuchar’s campaign, in a statement to Raw Story.

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Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) did not receive donations for his campaign from the PACs for the social media companies, but hundreds of individual employees from Snap, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and ByteDance donated to his campaign, according to FEC records.

In particular, Isaac Bess, an executive at ByteDance, and Jerry Hunter, an executive at Snapchat, each donated $1,000 to him in January 2021. Michael Lynton, Snapchat chairman, donated nearly $2,000 in December 2020 to his campaign committee.

Other individuals who identified themselves in leadership positions such as directors, business leads and attorneys donated more than $35,000 combined to the Jon Ossoff for Senate committee.

“Sen. Ossoff does not accept contributions from corporations, corporate PACs or federal lobbyists,” said Jake Best, an Ossoff campaign spokesperson, who did not address Ossoff's campaign accepting money from individual social media executives.

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The campaign for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) received at least $4,500 from Facebook PAC in 2017 and 2018, per federal campaign records.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) did not receive PAC donations from the social media companies, but his campaign took in at least $1,250 in donations combined from registered lobbyists for Twitter (now known as X) and TikTok. Other attorneys and leaders in public policy or risk management from ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok), Twitter and Facebook donated at least $3,700 combined, according to FEC records.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) got $2,000 from Facebook PAC between 2018 and 2019, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) received at least $1,500 from a Facebook lobbyist between October 2018 and October 2022, according to FEC records.

Sens. Peter Welch (D-VT) — when he was running for the House — Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and John Kennedy (R-LA) each got $1,000 for their campaigns from Facebook PAC or executives between 2018 and 2021, records show.

Meta did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

We asked 15 U.S. senators: Blood on Big Tech’s hands or on your hands?

WASHINGTON — If the titans of Silicon Valley have blood on their hands — as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday — then how much blood is on federal lawmakers’ hands for congressional inaction on measures to protect the nation’s children online?

Raw Story posed that question to 15 members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee as they exited their high profile hearing with the heads of TikTok, Snapchat, Discord, X (formerly Twitter) and Meta where senators, like Graham, the committee’s top Republican, blamed the CEOs for the issue Congress has yet to address.

“Mr. Zuckerberg, you and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands,” Graham said as the room erupted with applause.

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Graham's argument: Social media companies have failed to adequately combat online sex predators, bullies and harassers, as well as the proliferation of content that glorifies violence, exacerbates eating disorders and elevates unrealistic beauty standards."

Raw Story caught up with Graham in the hall outside the hearing, and offered his accusation back to him as a question.

“If there’s blood on their hands,” we inquired, “how much blood is on Congress’ hands for inaction?”

“It's fair to say that we need to do better. Yes, absolutely. I think you can say it eventually becomes our problem,” Graham told Raw Story.

Graham says the solution is easy: Pass the legislation he wrote with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to set up a new regulatory commission overseeing Big Tech.



“It’s very simple: Let them be sued,” Graham said. “Pass the bills. Pass a regulatory commission.”

It’s not that easy though, or so it seems from the deafening sound – and empty feeling – of congressional inaction for years on end.

In 2021, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen warned Congress “lives were in danger,” while also divulging thousands of pages of internal documents to back up her dire warnings.

Last year, Haugen’s testimony was supported by a second Meta whistleblower, Arturo Bejar, who testified that he warned Zuckerberg and other executives – “they knew and they were not acting on it” – about the pitfalls of the platform to teens and children to no avail.

Facebook has since changed its corporate name to Meta.

Congress, however, has taken no significant action.

‘For good or for evil’

In his opening remarks Wednesday, Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) touted five measures that have passed out of his committee aimed at protecting kids online.

They include slapping an up to $850,000 fine on tech companies that fail to report child sexual abuse content and giving the Department of Justice enhanced prosecutorial tools to go after those who spread child porn online.

But Durbin didn’t mention that the measures have languished, never coming before the entire Senate for a vote.

Blood on Congress’ hands?

“We've tackled this markup a year ago, so this hearing is a follow-up for that,” Durbin – the whip or number two most powerful Democrat in the Senate – told Raw Story.

“But it’s never seen the light of day on the floor?” Raw Story pressed.

“Not yet,” Durbin said.

So, when will it?

Crickets from Durbin.

There will be blood

Many senators on the Judiciary Committee disagreed with Graham’s characterization — at least when the charge of “blood on your hands” was leveled at Congress.

“I don’t necessarily think of it, or express it, in that way,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) told Raw Story. “But we all have responsibility, and to the extent we can change the laws that will provide safety for our children, then that’s what we should do.”

It wasn’t just Democrats — who are in the majority and thus control votes on the Senate floor — who took umbrage with the characterization and question of Congress having blood on its hands.

“I don’t think that’s helpful,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told Raw Story. “As you know, social media can be used for good or for evil, and that’s a huge challenge.”

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One member of Graham’s party asked not to be named so he could candidly discuss his colleague.

“It’s very productive for getting attention, but I don't like it,” the senior Republican senator on the Judiciary Committee told Raw Story. “I certainly don't buy the idea that blood is on our hands for not prohibiting something, particularly something that does have legitimate uses.”

One member of the committee, known for his pithy one liners, seemed to lose the use of his tongue, if momentarily.

“I don’t have anything for you on that,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Raw Story before the senator answered a question from a television crew.

Defensiveness aside, many members of the Judiciary Committee admitted Congress’ culpability.

“We’ve got some responsibility,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story.

Blood on Congress’ hands?

“That's a great question,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story. “We ought to do something … We need to vote.”

Hawley — who’s usually anti-regulation — has been one of the Senate’s most vocal advocates for policing Silicon Valley firms, especially when it comes to children who he’s proposed not be allowed on social media until they hit 16 years old.

Being pro-business, to Hawley, does not mean letting tech titans pave their own digital superhighways.

“Their view is, they’re for regulation, if they can write the regulation,” Hawley said. “I've just become — after working on this now for five years — I've become convinced that the best way to drive change is to allow people to get into a courtroom. That’s the key thing. It's what they hate. That's what they want the least. They would rather a new agency, than have the courtroom doors opened up to private citizens.”

Hawley’s been lonely for much of those five years, but these days — after two Meta whistleblowers in three years have captured Congress’ attention — other Republicans agree Congress is complicit in hurting children and has therefore stained its hands.

“I think through inaction, it’s a shared responsibility,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Raw Story.

Time to un-friend?

While Big Tech has dropped tens of millions of dollars on lobbying efforts to defeat proposed regulations, Tillis is not alone in arguing that the companies need to change their tune before Congress is forced to change it for them.

“The industry needs to stop looking at safety as a competitive advantage and come up with a collaboration that they all use,” Tillis said. “I think the industry needs to realize you, you need to compete on features, you should all be looking for the same norm in terms of community safety.”

Blood on Congress’ hands? Some Republicans say they’re in the minority so don’t look at them.

“At the end of the day, Chuck Schumer controls what goes to the floor, and at least so far, he has not been willing to move this legislation. It should move,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Raw Story.

Schumer’s office didn’t reply to a request for comment on if — or when — measures aimed at protecting children’s privacy online may hit the Senate floor this year. But his rank-and-file believe this – just as last year was and the year before that – is the year.

“Leader Schumer has committed that he will work with us in bringing this bill and others to the floor,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told Raw Story. “Hopefully as soon as possible but before the election.”

As for whether Congress is covered in the same blood in which Silicon Valley is now — according to Graham — covered?

“Congress has a responsibility to act, and it must act,” Blumenthal said. “I’m not talking about blood on people’s hands, I'm talking about a basic responsibility.”

Mention ‘Liz Cheney 2024’ and things get very, very awkward on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON – Liz Cheney may be flirting with a 2024 presidential run, but – at least on Capitol Hill – it doesn’t seem anyone wants to take her to the dance.

The former co-chair of the Select January 6 Committee, Cheney – who represented Wyoming for three terms in Congress while also serving as a House Republican leader – continues making waves on cable news as she promotes her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning, especially when she has left the door open for a third-party run in some of her media hits.

“I think that the situation that we’re in is so grave, and the politics of the moment require independents and Republicans and Democrats coming together in a way that can help form a new coalition, so that may well be a third-party option,” Cheney told USA TODAY.

When Cheney’s book tour takes her to Washington, D.C., next week, she’ll be in the running for the loneliest women in Washington these days. And everyone in Washington is lonely.

The mini-dynasty of the Cheneys — Dick and Liz — may be over. At least within the Republican Party – the very party the Cheneys re-created in their own neoconservative image in the past two bomb- and Saddam-laden decades.

“Cheney 2024?” Raw Story asked several prominent members of Congress.

“I don't have particular views on the Democratic primary,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) dismissively quipped to Raw Story.

“I think RFK Jr. is a more interesting third-party candidate,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) told Raw Story through a laugh.

Even among Wyoming politicians, any historic Cheney love now seems lost.

“I’ve got to give a speech right now,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) told Raw Story as he walked to the Senate floor for a perfunctory immigration speech Wednesday.

It’s not just Republicans.

“Oh my gosh, it's the least – look, I have a lot of respect for Liz Cheney – I’m not thinking about presidential politics right now. I've got too much on my mind … that we’ve got to get done,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told Raw Story Wednesday. “So I think I'll just leave it at that.”

As Cheney has maneuvered the awkward anti-Donald Trump tightrope — seeming to throw water on a third-party run, even while stoking third-party presidential chatter — Cheney’s got a cheering squad behind her. And not just the MSNBC and CNN punditry.

Democrats have learned to love this new Liz Cheney – even as just a few years ago, most Democrats decried her and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, for their expansionist and militaristic view of U.S. foreign policy.

The attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 changed everything in Washington, it seems.

“There's a different priority now,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story. “She embodies a commitment to the most important priority and that's protecting our democracy.”

“Even if that means torturing other people abroad?” Raw Story pressed.

“Well, no.”

“That's what her and her dad advocated for over the years.”

“That's correct,” Welch said. “She has foreign policy things I disagree with. She has tax policy, economic policies I disagree with, but there's nobody I respect or admire more for standing up to Trump at great personal peril – she was headed to becoming speaker and she stood on principle rather than clinging on to ambition.”

A former Fox News commentator and mother of five, Liz Cheney was recently seen as a political titan among elected officials. Because she was one.

Her father, the former vice president, represented Wyoming in Congress for a decade (1979-1989), which turned “Cheney” into a household name across the sprawling western state before it became nationally known. He then served as secretary of Defense during the first Gulf War — a nightly presence on the evening news.

The name recognition helped, as Liz Cheney was promoted to the No. 3 House Republican in her second term before winning 69 percent of the vote in her third and final victorious House race in 2020.

“That’s amazing,” then-Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH) – now the secretary of Housing and Urban Development – told me at the time. “I don’t even know what to say — I’m speechless that somebody that has that kind of belief system is a leader in anybody’s caucus.”

The Cheneys’ Republican honeymoon proved a blip, though.

In the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Liz Cheney voted to impeach Trump, which was seen as a betrayal by Trump, other party leaders and many rank-and-file Republicans. That impeachment vote set the dominos in motion, including her getting booted from the House GOP leadership team later that summer. Name I.D. flipped — Democrats now use “Cheney” and “patriot” in the same sentence, tortured record and all — even as her political career, at least temporarily, flopped.

Crossing Trump also led to Liz Cheney’s censure at the hand of her fellow Wyoming Republicans before the state party made it final and voted to boot her from the party that fall. She lost in a Republican primary and exited Congress in January.

“She's just not representative of the views of people in my state, and she's not representative of my views either,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) told Raw Story. “I'm a constitutional conservative and she's more of a neoconservative, and we're just not on the same page.”

Lummis is quick to point out that Trump is no constitutional conservative either, though, like most of today’s elected Republicans, she says that doesn’t matter.

“Oddly, Trump is really kind of a populist. He's not really, you know, a constitutional conservative either, but I just feel the policies when he was president felt good on the ground – to people on the ground. And I was one of those people. When he was president, I wasn't here,” Lummis said. “So it just felt good on the ground.”

One thing on which there’s no disagreement in Washington is that a GOP civil war is raging. What the party will look like on the other end remains, mostly, unclear to Lummis. Though she knows it doesn’t look like Dick and Liz Cheney.

“Honestly, as the Republican Party transitions to wherever it's going – and I don't know where it's going – it is certainly transitioning away from, the sort of, Cheney era,” Lummis said.

Cheney’s publicist and former congressional staffers did not respond to requests for comment.

That may be because they know what Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) predicts: A credible third-party run – whether Cheney or someone else – won’t reorder America’s two-party system anytime soon. For more than a century – come Teddy Roosevelt, George Wallace, John Anderson, H. Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Gary Johnson and Kanye West – no minor-party or independent presidential candidate has done anything more than play the role of spoiler.

“I think it's awfully hard,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) told Raw Story “If you look at it, it's going to be Biden and Trump. So I don't know.”

So while Cheney 2024 is stillborn in the eyes of politicians who know her, some — particularly Democrats — still offer her respect, if not their support.

“Her goal is obviously to stop Trump. Well, I share that,” Welch said. “I'm a Biden supporter, so I'm not sure it's wise for her to run because that may help Trump. I don't know. But just, as a political figure, she is extraordinary.”

‘It all came flooding back’: Trump indictment hard on lawmakers left in House Gallery on January 6

WASHINGTON – This week’s indictment and arraignment of former President Donald Trump was something some lawmakers trapped in the U.S. House Gallery on Jan. 6, 2021 didn’t expect to see, but there were no celebrations when the moments arrived. A part of them still mourns.

The first thought to flash through many minds wasn’t of Trump arrested, it was flashbacks of themselves and others facing likely injury and potential death — “hang Mike Pence” still rings in many ears.

January 6 and being trapped in the Gallery with my colleagues, worrying about my staff and all of the staff inside the Capitol and around the campus. It truly, it all came flooding back to me,” Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX) told Raw Story the night the indictment was announced.

Escobar attended most of the House Jan. 6 select committee’s 10 hearings last year, along with a rotating cast of close to three-dozen other lawmakers who were also trapped alongside her Jan. 6, 2021, in the balcony overlooking the House floor.



That includes Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA). She says this week’s Trump indictment sent a wave of thoughts and emotions through her that have ebbed and flowed throughout the week.

“For me, it was stunning and shocking. Staggering … Sad for our country,” Dean told Raw Story. “Crazy yet not surprising.”

Congress is in recess for the month of August. While many of the members left stranded in the House gallery — the “Gallery Group,” to some — on Jan. 6 have remained quiet this week, a handful have shared their reactions to Raw Story and on social media.

Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO)

“I remember consoling my friend and colleague who had just spoken to her family. I remember telling my fellow members to take off their pins so we couldn’t be identified. My Ranger training kicked in and I remember gripping my pen to use as a weapon if necessary.”



Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA)

“I was in the House Gallery on January 6 as insurrectionists attempted to take over our nation’s capital. Trump urged these actions and then simply sat there as they unfolded, refusing to even immediately tell his supporters to go home. Our democracy survived, but barely.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS); chairman of Jan. 6 select committee

“January 6th was a test of American democracy, but the fair trials of those responsible will further demonstrate this Nation’s commitment to the rule of law and hold accountable those who attempted to undermine it.”



Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), then a member of the House

“January 6th will be remembered as one of the darkest days in American history. I was in the House chamber when rioters breached the Capitol, and I saw firsthand the devastation of the insurrection. Make no mistake: the tragic events of that day — and the lies and conspiracies pushed by former President Donald Trump and his followers — did tremendous damage to our democracy.”



Rep. Annie Kuster (D-NH)

“We have an independent judicial system for a reason — to ensure no one is treated with a separate standard of justice. No one is above the law.”

'Watch the trial'

Rep. Escobar of Texas and the others say they’re eagerly awaiting the trial.

“The indictments and a trial are so important. We cannot forget what happened January 6. We cannot ignore it. We cannot give anyone a pass,” Escobar said. “And frankly, the American public needs to read those indictments and they need to watch the trial.”

Still, Escobar fears Trump, who as a 2024 presidential candidate is leading all others for the Republican nomination, damaged American democracy for years to come.

“The fact that there are millions of Americans who are so deeply radicalized by Fox News and by extremist Republicans and by the MAGA movement, that they are willing to look past everything that Donald Trump has done, and that they actually see him as a victim,” Escobar said. “It is shocking to me. It is terrifying to me. Far more than what Donald Trump is doing, what is terrifying to me, is the millions of Americans who cannot see the truth through all the lies that they've been told.”

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