Liz Cheney
Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is an American attorney and former politician who was the U.S. representative for from 2017 to 2023, and served as chair of the House Republican Conference from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Republican Party, she is known for her vocal opposition to Donald Trump.
Cheney is the elder daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney and second lady Lynne Cheney. She held several positions in the U.S. State Department during the George W. Bush administration. She promoted regime change in Iran while chairing the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group with Elliott Abrams. In 2009, Cheney and Bill Kristol founded Keep America Safe, a nonprofit organization concerned with national security issues that supported the Bush–Cheney administration's positions. In 2014 she was briefly a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Wyoming, challenging incumbent Mike Enzi before withdrawing. She was elected to the House of Representatives in 2016, holding the same seat her father had held from 1979 to 1989.
Regarded as a leading ideological neoconservative in the Bush–Cheney tradition as well as representative of the Republican establishment, Cheney is known for her pro-business stances and hawkish foreign policy views. She was critical of the foreign policy of the first Donald Trump administration while consistently voting in favor of Trump's overall agenda.
Cheney supported the second impeachment of Donald Trump following the 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Her impeachment vote and criticism of Donald Trump led to her eventual removal from Republican leadership in May 2021. In July 2021, Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed Cheney to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Two months later, she was made vice chair of the committee. Her role on the committee resulted in the Wyoming Republican Party revoking Cheney's membership in November 2021 as well as censure from the Republican National Committee in February 2022.
In 2022, Cheney lost renomination in Wyoming's Republican primary to Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman in a landslide, garnering just 28.9% of the vote. Cheney has said that she intends to be "the leader, one of the leaders, in a fight to help to restore" the Republican Party. She later endorsed and campaigned for Kamala Harris's unsuccessful run in the 2024 presidential election. In 2024, she was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal by Joe Biden and pardoned from potential future prosecution. As of March 2023, she is a professor of practice at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Early life and education
Elizabeth Lynne Cheney was born on July 28, 1966, in Madison, Wisconsin. She is the elder of two daughters of former vice president Dick Cheney and former second lady Lynne Cheney. At the time of her birth, her parents were studying at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her younger sister, Mary Cheney, was also born in Madison. Cheney attended part of sixth and seventh grade in Casper, Wyoming, while her father campaigned for Congress. The family divided its time between Casper and Washington, D.C., in the 1970s through the 1980s, following her father's election to Congress. In 1984 Cheney graduated from McLean High School in suburban Washington, D.C., where she was a cheerleader. In 1988, Cheney received her B.A. in political science in from Colorado College, her mother's alma mater, where she wrote a senior thesis entitled "The Evolution of Presidential War Powers." She received her J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1996. While there, she also took courses in Middle Eastern history at the Oriental Institute.Early career
Before attending law school, Cheney worked for the State Department for five years and the United States Agency for International Development between 1989 and 1993. After 1993, she took a job at Armitage Associates LLP, the consulting firm founded by Richard Armitage, then a former Defense Department official and later the deputy secretary of state.After graduation from law school, Cheney practiced law at the law firm of White & Case and as an international law attorney and consultant at the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group. She was also special assistant to the deputy secretary of state for assistance to the former Soviet Union, and a USAID officer in U.S. embassies in Budapest and Warsaw.
State Department
Deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs
In 2002, Cheney was appointed deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, a preexisting vacant post with an "economic portfolio", a mandate to promote investment in the region. Amid reports, including a New York Times op-ed piece by Paul Krugman, that the job was created especially for her, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said that she had come recommended by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell. The Sunday Times reported that Cheney's appointment was "the most intriguing sign that America is getting serious about Middle East reform" and "a measure of the seriousness with which the administration was taking Middle East programmes for literacy, education, and reform." The appointment followed publicized policy divisions between the vice president's office and the State Department on Middle East policy. In that position, she was given control of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, designed to "foster increased democracy and economic progress in a troubled region". The program spent $29 million in 2002, increased to $129 million in the following year. Cheney's task was to channel money to prescreened groups, some of which were not identified publicly for fear of retaliations from extant governments they sought to undermine. For the budget year 2004, the project sought $145 million.2004 Bush–Cheney reelection campaign
After two years, Cheney left her State Department post in 2003 to work for the Bush–Cheney 2004 reelection campaign. She participated in the campaign's "W Stands for Women" initiative to target female voters.Principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs
On February 14, 2005, she returned to the U.S. State Department and was appointed principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and coordinator for broader Middle East and North Africa initiatives. In this position, Cheney supported the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, C. David Welch, and coordinated multilateral efforts to promote and support democracy and expand education and economic opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa. Cheney oversaw the launch of two semi-independent foundations, the Fund of the Future, to provide capital for small businesses, and the Foundation of the Future, to promote freedom of the press and democracy. In that capacity, Cheney endorsed a draft of a new Iraqi constitution.Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group
Cheney also headed the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group, established in March 2006, a unit within the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.In April 2006, The New York Times published a story that was critical of Cheney's work, particularly with respect to Iran. The International Republican Institute, a grants program administered by Cheney's unit in collaboration with a Republican-affiliated foundation, received particular scrutiny. Shortly before the ISOG group was dissolved, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice initiated a major effort to engage Iran and Syria in efforts to stabilize Iraq.
Post–State Department career
In June 2007 Cheney signed on as one of three national co-chairs of Fred Thompson's 2008 presidential campaign. The others were Spencer Abraham and George Allen. In a press release issued at the beginning of his campaign, Thompson said he was "very pleased to announce that former senators Abraham and Allen, as well as Liz Cheney, will serve as co-chairs of my national leadership team". He added: "These distinguished individuals bring wise counsel and invaluable experience to my campaign leadership team, and they will play a critical role in helping spread my consistent conservative message across America." After Thompson dropped out of the race, Cheney joined Mitt Romney's presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy advisor.In October 2009, Liz Cheney, William Kristol, and Deborah Burlingame launched, as board members, the nonprofit 501 organization Keep America Safe. The group's stated purpose is to "provide information for concerned Americans about critical national security issues". It drew strong criticism from conservative lawyers, many of whom had worked for the Bush administration, after its campaign against "The Al Qaeda 7", seven Justice Department lawyers in the Obama administration who previously had worked as defense lawyers for Guantanamo detainees. Shortly after, all information about the organization disappeared from the Internet.
In January 2012, Cheney was hired as a contributor for Fox News. She guest-hosted programs such as Hannity and Fox News Sunday. The network terminated her contract in July 2013 after she started her 2014 bid for the Senate in Wyoming.
2014 U.S. Senate bid
On July 16, 2013, Cheney launched a run for the Senate in 2014 from Wyoming as a Republican, challenging incumbent Republican senator Mike Enzi. The National Republican Senatorial Committee said it would back Enzi, as was policy. Cheney was expected to receive strong fundraising, but was subject to public perceptions of carpetbagging, having lived in Wyoming only a few years as a child before purchasing a home there in 2012. When she launched her 2014 Senate campaign, she did it with a Facebook post geotagged to McLean, Virginia, her primary residence at the time. During that campaign, The New Republic columnist Jon Ward wrote, "she talked up her Wyoming roots and dressed in boots. But when I chatted with her at one stop, her jeans were so new that her hands were stained blue from touching them." In the video she noted that the Cheney family first came to Wyoming in 1852. Her father represented Wyoming in the House from 1979 to 1989.In her first campaign appearance in Cheyenne, Cheney said, "We have to not be afraid of being called obstructionists. Obstructing President Obama's policies and his agenda isn't actually obstruction; it's patriotism." Cheney claimed that Obama had "literally declared war" on the First and Second amendments to the United States Constitution as well as the interests of Wyoming ranchers and energy workers who faced regulations from the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
Cheney's campaign was marred by criticism from her championing of "hawkish" foreign policy positions to a public spat with her sister over her opposition to same-sex marriage. Enzi's continuing popularity made it difficult for Cheney to make inroads with Wyoming Republicans. On January 6, 2014, Cheney withdrew from the race, citing family health issues.