Biden awards Cheney, Thompson for Jan. 6 probe weeks before Trump returns to presidency

Derek Wallbank, Bloomberg News on Jan 2, 2025

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WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden presented Liz Cheney and Bennie Thompson with the Presidential Citizens Medal, honoring the leaders of the congressional committee that probed the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, just weeks before Donald Trump is set to reclaim the presidency.

In a statement Thursday, the White House cited 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 win.

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 that day, as well as election officials who upheld the election results.

Cheney, a former Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, and Thompson, a Democratic representative from Mississippi, are among a class of 20 who are receiving the medal.

On the list are 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 is Ted Kaufman, a longtime Biden political adviser who was appointed in 2009 to succeed him in the U.S. Senate.

Biden’s awardees also include a series of civil rights advocates, including Mary Bonauto, an attorney 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, will also receive an award. So, too, will Nancy Kassebaum, a former Kansas Republican senator, and Bill Bradley, the former Democratic senator from New Jersey who previously was a star basketball player for the New York Knicks.

(Akayla Gardner and Justin Sink contributed to this report.)