(Credit: Julie Kelly/Declassified)
(…) In another odd turn of fate, Cheney now finds herself in the hot seat following shocking disclosures by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (GA-11), chairman of the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee tasked with conducting a separate investigation into the J6 committee’s work and overall events of that day. A recent report issued by Loudermilk detailed Cheney’s misconduct and influence over the J6 committee, prompting some GOP legislators and the incoming president to call for a criminal investigation into Cheney for potential witness tampering and other offenses.
Cheney’s behavior before January 6, however, also merits scrutiny. Oddly, she appears to have been the first official to predict that a bomb could disrupt the joint session that day—a scenario she had contemplated on at least three separate occasions leading up to that day.
Her fears proved accurate, but she inexplicably dropped the matter during her committee’s 18-month long investigation into the events of Jan 6.
Cheney’s Uncanny Clairvoyance
Cheney’s earliest vision occurred on December 12, 2020, while watching coverage of pro-Trump rallies in Washington, D.C., from her laptop. According to The Washington Post, Cheney’s thoughts “flashed forward to January 6,” as she “imagined a bomb threat halting the count to certify the election.”
Her concerns intensified in mid-to-late December as House Republicans discussed plans to contest the election results. During this period, she claimed she was reading Ted Widmer’s Lincoln on the Verge, which documented President Abraham Lincoln’s trip to Washington for his inauguration. In her memoir, Oath and Honor, Cheney drew parallels to 1861 when pro-Southern militias gathered in the nation’s capital potentially to invade the Capitol and halt the certification of President Lincoln’s election. She reflected on the tense atmosphere—heightened by fears that Vice President John Breckinridge, who was to preside over the proceedings, might not acknowledge Lincoln’s victory—and compounded by nightly bomb searches in the Capitol’s basement.
“This made for chilling reading in December of 2020,” Cheney remarked. “What did President Trump expect to do with the crowd of supporters he was summoning to Washington? Would they try to disrupt or delay the electoral count on January 6? How? Would there be a bomb threat? If someone called in a bomb threat and the Capitol was evacuated, were arrangements in place for Congress to meet somewhere else?”
Soothsayer Cheney once again proved prescient; lawmakers were evacuated to Fort McNair Army base after protesters entered the Capitol on January 6.
Cheney also raised the possibility of explosives near the Capitol during a January 2, 2021, phone call with then-Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen. She and her husband, Philip Perry, an attorney and alum of the George W. Bush administration, called Rosen to express their concerns that “a bomb threat or some other tactic might be used to halt the count.” During the conversation, Perry cited post-9/11 security measures around the Bush White House; Rosen reassured the couple that additional security resources would be available at a nearby military base if needed.
Newsweek later reported over that very same weekend, Rosen, without formal requests from law enforcement or external agencies, unilaterally activated long-standing contingency plans designed to address a terrorist attack involving a weapon of mass destruction—the exact scenario Cheney had warned him about. Elite government special operations teams, including the FBI’s Hostage Rescue and “Render Safe” teams, an ATF Special Response Team, and the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group, were pre-deployed and on alert over the weekend of January 2-3 staging at the FBI Academy complex in Quantico.
On January 6, Cheney’s predictions of doom materialized when the two pipe bombs were found near the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee, both just blocks from the Capitol, on January 6 just as the joint session of Congress convened to debate the election outcome. Former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testified to Congress in February 2021 to explain that he believed the timing and location of the pipe bombs’ discovery diverted “extensive resources” from the Capitol. This diversion coincided with a mass influx of protesters approaching its grounds, offering a narrow window of opportunity for a few bad actors to initiate a large-scale attack.
The ensuing chaos ended Republicans’ plans that day to expose voting fraud related to the 2020 presidential election—precisely the outcome Cheney had wanted. (Read more:(Declassified/Julie Kelly, 12/22/2024) (Archive)