The former House January 6 committee member Liz Cheney released an attack ad against Donald Trump in New Hampshire on the eve of his appearance there in a controversial CNN town hall.
“There has never been a greater dereliction of duty by any president,” Cheney warns in the ad, which focuses on Trump’s incitement of the deadly Capitol attack on 6 January 2021.
“Donald Trump has proven he is unfit for office. Donald Trump is a risk America can never take again.”
Trump incited the attack by his supporters in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s election win. Nine deaths have been linked to it. Thousands of arrests have been made and hundreds of convictions secured – some for seditious conspiracy.
Trump was impeached for inciting an insurrection but acquitted by Senate Republicans.
Cheney, the daughter of the former congressman, defense secretary and vice-president Dick Cheney, was vice-chair of the House committee which investigated the Capitol attack and, regarding Trump, made criminal referrals to the Department of Justice.
Cheney lost her Wyoming seat to a Trump-backed challenger last year.
Now working on a book – entitled Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning – she has not counted out running for the Republican nomination against Trump, or running for president as an independent conservative.
Her new ad will run only on CNN in New Hampshire, where at St Anselm College on Wednesday night, CNN will host a Trump town hall with Republican voters.
CNN has defended its decision to host Trump by pointing out that he is the clear Republican frontrunner. Cheney’s ad will run before and during the town hall.
The same day Cheney’s ad came out, Trump was found liable for sexual assault and defamation in a case brought by E Jean Carroll, a writer who claims Trump raped her. Ordered to pay around $5m in damages, Trump responded angrily, denying wrongdoing and saying he would appeal.
Trump faces legal jeopardy on a scale unprecedented for a presidential candidate, let alone the clear leader for a major party nomination.
Investigators in Georgia are expected soon to announce indictments related to Trump’s attempted election subversion there.
The federal investigation into his attempt to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, and his incitement of the Capitol attack on 6 January 2021, goes on.
Federal authorities are also examining Trump’s retention of classified information after leaving office.
Last month in New York, he pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal counts related to his hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims an affair Trump denies.
Trump also faces a New York state civil suit over his business and tax affairs.
Nonetheless, Trump leads by wide margins in polling regarding the Republican nomination in 2024. Cheney barely features.
Speaking to the New York Times, a spokesperson for Trump called Cheney “a stone-cold loser who is now trying to grift her way to relevance”.
Conversely, the Guardian columnist Robert Reich has said Cheney “has displayed more courage and integrity than almost any other member of her party – indeed, given the pressure she was under, perhaps more than any lawmaker now alive”.
