OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A woman accused of stealing a laptop computer from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, was granted a small reprieve by a court last week.
According to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Riley Williams, 25, has been on house arrest since shortly after the incident, but this weekend was allowed to leave her home to attend a renaissance in Lancaster County.
“She is confined to her home 24/7 with exceptions. Every once in a while, if there is an activity that interests her, we ask if she can attend,” her attorney, Lori Ulrich, told the local outlet.
According to a federal complaint, Williams posted messages on Discord allegedly copping to stealing the California Democrat’s property.
“I STOLE S–T FROM NANCY POLESI [sic],” she allegedly said in one message. “I DOMT [sic] CAREI TOOK NANCY POLESIS [sic] HARD DRIVES I DON’T CARE KILL ME,” she also wrote, according to the complaint.
Meanwhile, participating on Pelosi’s hand-picked Jan. 6 Committee has been costly for the two Republicans who agreed to take part.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) is not running for reelection in November, in part because the Democrats who control his state, altered his district following the 2020 Census. And Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) was badly defeated by Trump-backed attorney Harriet Hageman on Tuesday.
Nevertheless, Cheney has doubled down on her decision to join the committee after voting to impeach the former president following the Jan. 6 riot.
“I think what we have seen, not just in Wyoming but across the country, is that Donald Trump has betrayed Republican voters. He’s lied to them. Those who support him have lied to them. And they’re using people’s patriotism against them. They’re preying on people’s patriotism,” she claimed, according to the UK’s Daily Mail.
She also ripped House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
“This is a great, a special, exceptional nation, and we need leaders who have reverence to our Constitution, are faithful to our Constitution, and will do what’s required to abide by our oath no matter whether it’s politically convenient. Kevin McCarthy does not fit that bill,” she added.
Liz Cheney is joining us live. @SavannahGuthrie is speaking with her about the defeat in the Wyoming Republican primary, her take in the message the voters were sending, and where she goes from here. pic.twitter.com/xrpOMs5fAv
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 17, 2022
“I believe that Donald Trump continues to pose a very grave threat and risk to our Republic. I think that defeating him is going to require a broad and united front of Republicans, Democrats and Independents — and that’s what I intend to be part of,” Cheney vowed.
During her concession speech Tuesday evening, Cheney reflected about how she won her last election by a 73-point margin and how “I could easily have done the same again.”
“The path was clear. But it would have required that I go along with President Trump’s lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic,” she said.
“That was a path I could not and would not take,” she said.
She made similar remarks during her Today show interview.
“It was clear how that path would go,” she said, regarding her decision to criticize Trump following the Jan. 6 riot and blame him for the incident before joining a Democrat-controlled committee to investigate that Republicans have called little more than an exercise in overt partisanship. “But that path would have required that I accept, that I embrace, that I perpetuate the big lie” about the 2020 election, she added.
Cheney next appeared to take verbal shots at Trump’s supporters.
“It was clear how that path would go. But that path would have required that I accept, that I embrace, that I perpetuate the big lie,” she told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. “I think that is a red line. I don’t think anybody should be supporting those people. Republicans shouldn’t be supporting them.”
“I think the Republican party today is in very bad shape, and I think that we have a tremendous amount of work to do,’ Cheney continued, adding that it’s a party that has “embraced Donald Trump, embraced his cult of personality, is looking the other way as he continues to do things like put out the names of FBI agents.”
