U.S. President Joe Biden presented Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson with the Presidential Citizens Medal, honouring the leaders of the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — just weeks before Donald Trump is set to reclaim the presidency.
“You are elected officials who served in difficult times with honour and decency and ensured our democracy delivers,” Biden said during a ceremony at the White House on Thursday evening that honoured them and other Americans, including several lawmakers.
The White House has lauded Cheney and Thompson’s stewardship of the panel that investigated attempts to overturn the 2020 election, including when supporters of then-President Trump overran the Capitol, forcing the evacuation of lawmakers and briefly delaying the certification of Biden’s victory.
The Presidential Citizens Medal, established in 1969 by Richard Nixon, recognizes Americans “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”
Biden has used the medal previously to highlight what he’s called an attack on democracy “fueled by lies about the 2020 election.” In 2023, he gave the award to several police officers who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6, as well as election officials who upheld the 2020 election results.
Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, and Thompson, a Democratic representative from Mississippi, were among a class of 20 who received the medal.
On the list were some of Biden’s oldest political allies, including Chris Dodd, the former Democratic senator from Connecticut and namesake of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. Another was Ted Kaufman, a longtime Biden political adviser who was appointed in 2009 to succeed him in the U.S. Senate.
Biden’s awardees also included a series of civil rights advoca.tes, including Mary Bonauto, an lawyer who argued before the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark case that established national recognition of same-sex marriage.
Carolyn McCarthy, the former Democratic congresswoman whose husband was killed in a 1993 mass shooting on the Long Island Railroad and became an advocate for tighter gun safety laws, also received an award. So, too, did Nancy Kassebaum, a former Kansas Republican senator, and Bill Bradley, a former Democratic senator from New Jersey who previously was a star basketball player for the New York Knicks.
— With assistance from Akayla Gardner, Justin Sink and Hadriana Lowenkron.