Liz Cheney Will Get a Medal for Attainder

President Biden, in honoring the former congresswoman and one of her colleagues on the J6 committee, ignores one of the most important prohibitions in constitutional law.

AP/J. Scott Applewhite
Representatives Elizabeth Cheney and Bennie Thompson, at left, at a hearing of the House January 6 committee on June 9, 2022. AP/J. Scott Applewhite

President Biden’s plan to bestow on Congresswoman Liz Cheney and Congressman Bennie Thompson Citizen’s Medals is being described by the Times as a continuation of his push for “bipartisanship and decency in politics.” Yet we see the January 6 committee, and the work of its members, as violations of the constitutional prohibition on bills of attainder — that is, the prohibition of trial by legislature.

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