Joe Biden has bestowed the second highest civilian medal on the Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson and the Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney, who led the bipartisan congressional investigation into the deadly 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters intent on overturning his election defeat by Biden.
Trump, who takes office again on 20 January after winning November’s election, has said the leaders of that committee, which published its conclusions in December 2022 after a series of high-profile public hearings, should be jailed, not rewarded.
Biden, the outgoing US president, awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a White House ceremony late on Thursday afternoon.
“Together, you embody the central truth: we’re a great nation because we’re a good people,” he told those in the room. “Our democracy begins and ends with the duties of citizenship. That’s our work for the ages and it’s what all of you embody.”
As well as the prominent co-chairs of that committee, other recipients included Americans who successfully fought for marriage equality for same-sex couples to become legal.
There was also a medal for a pioneer in treating wounded soldiers, and for two of Biden’s longtime political allies, the Democratic former senators Ted Kaufman of Delaware, the state that Biden used to represent in the Senate, and Chris Dodd of Connecticut.
“President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others,” the White House said in a statement. “The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”
Biden last year honored people who were involved in defending the US Capitol from the rioters who stormed the building, hunting down fleeing lawmakers and invading the House chamber, which moments before had been packed for the ceremony to officially certify Biden’s win over Trump in the 2020 election, or otherwise safeguarded the election result.
Cheney, who was a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming and is the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, and Thompson, a Mississippi Democratic congressman, led the House committee that investigated the insurrection.
The crowd erupted in loud cheers and stood when Cheney took the stage. Biden clasped her hand and gave her the medal. The announcer said she was being given it “for putting the American people over party”. Thompson also got a standing ovation.
The committee’s final report asserted that Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the election he lost to Biden and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. Thompson wrote that Trump “lit that fire”.
Cheney later said she would vote for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race and even campaigned with her after being fiercely critical of Trump post-January 6.
Biden has been considering whether to offer pre-emptive pardons to Cheney and others Trump has targeted.
Trump still refuses to back away from his lies about the 2020 presidential race and has said he would pardon the rioters once he takes office.
During an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump said: “Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps.” He claimed without evidence they “deleted and destroyed” testimony they collected. “Honestly, they should go to jail,” he said.
Biden on Thursday also gave the presidential award to attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage, and Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage equality movement.
Other honorees included Frank Butler, who set new standards for using tourniquets on war injuries; Diane Carlson Evans, an army nurse during the Vietnam war who founded the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation; and Eleanor Smeal, an activist who led women’s rights protests in the 1970s and fought for equal pay.
He also gave the award to photographer Bobby Sager, academics Thomas Vallely and Paula Wallace, and Frances Visco, the president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition.
Other former lawmakers who were honored include former senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey; former senator Nancy Kassebaum, the first woman to represent Kansas; and former congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy of New York, who championed gun safety measures after her son and husband were shot to death.
After he presented the awards, Biden went back to the lectern to ask lawmakers in the room to stand, as well as John Kerry.
“Let’s remember, our work continues,” he said to the room. He recognized the families of the nominees, saying none of them could have done what they did without their support. “We’ve got a lot more work to do to keep this going,” he added.
Biden honored four people posthumously: Joseph Galloway, a former war correspondent who wrote about the first major battle in Vietnam in the book We Were Soldiers Once … and Young; civil rights advocate and attorney Louis Lorenzo Redding; former Delaware state judge Collins Seitz; and Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi, who was held with other Japanese Americans during the second world war and challenged the detention.
The Presidential Citizens Medal, created by President Richard Nixon in 1969, is the country’s second highest civilian honor after the presidential medal of freedom. It is awarded to those who “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens”.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
