WASHINGTON -- The emerging partnership between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., is remarkable, if not astonishing, as the longtime political adversaries join forces to investigate what happened the day former President Donald Trump's supporters stormed the Capitol.
Democratic lawmakers and the Republican congresswoman were gathered in the House speaker's office as the group prepared for the first session of the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
Pelosi spoke of the "solemn responsibility" before them and raised her water glass to Cheney, a daughter of the former vice president and the sole Republican in the room.
"Let us salute Liz for her courage," she said, according to a person familiar with the gathering who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
Rarely has there been a meeting of the minds like this -- two of the strongest women on Capitol Hill, partisans at opposite ends of the political divide -- bonding over a shared belief that the truth about the insurrection should come out and those responsible held accountable. They believe no less than the functioning of America's democracy is on the line.
"Nothing draws politicians together like a shared enemy," said John Pitney, a former Republican staffer and professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College.
The committee will hold its first hearing this week, when the panel will hear testimony from police officers who battled the Trump supporters that day at the Capitol. The officers have portrayed the hourslong siege as hardly a gathering of peaceful demonstrators, as some Republicans claim, but rather a violent mob trying to stop Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's election.
As their new partnership unfolds, Pelosi benefits more politically from drawing Cheney to her side, giving the committee's investigation the big-name bipartisan stamp it needs to avoid being viewed as a strictly political exercise.
For Cheney, who has already been booted from GOP leadership over her criticism of Trump, the political dangers are far greater. She was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the insurrection, and her willingness to speak out against his top ally, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, now leaves her isolated on Capitol Hill. She is facing blowback from the ranks and serious primary challenges for her reelection back home.
"I'm horrified," said Sen. Cynthia Lummis, a fellow Wyoming Republican, about Cheney's actions.
Cheney, though, shows no signs of backing down on what she views as an existential fight not only for the party she and her family helped build, but also for the soul of the nation itself.
"The American people deserve to know what happened," she said last week.
Standing on the steps of the Capitol, Cheney lambasted the rhetoric coming from McCarthy as "disgraceful" and supported Pelosi's decision to block two of his appointees to the panel because of their alliance with Trump.
McCarthy has suggested Cheney might be closer now to Pelosi than her own party, and he withdrew all Republican participation in the committee.
Despite their long resumes in American politics, Pelosi and Cheney never really talked to each other before this moment.
Pelosi won her first term as speaker during the George W. Bush administration, largely attacking the White House over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the hawkish defense posture of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
Liz Cheney took office in 2017 defending her father's legacy, speaking boldly at one of her first news conferences in support of the enhanced interrogation technique of waterboarding that was decried as torture under his watch. During Trump's first impeachment, she lacerated Pelosi's intentions in speeches.
Privately, those involved in the committee's work see in Cheney a serious and constructive member, hardly a Republican figurehead but a determined partner to what she has said must be a "sober" investigation. It was Cheney who elevated the idea of having former Rep. Denver Riggleman, R-Va., serve as an adviser to the committee, which is under consideration, one of the people said.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chair of the Jan. 6 panel, said that while he and others didn't know Cheney well, he found her to be "just like every other member that I have a relationship with. And I think that's good. I just wish we had more of that kind of relationship in this institution. We'd be better off."
Information for this article was contributed by Mary Clare Jalonick, Alan Fram, Emily Swanson and Hannah Fingerhut of The Associated Press.
