(Reuters) – Former Representative Liz Cheney, who bucked her Republican Party as a strong critic of President-elect Donald Trump and some of his allies, will be one of the 20 people awarded by President Joe Biden on Thursday with the Presidential Citizens Medal, one of the country’s highest civilian honors.
The medal is awarded to U.S. citizens who have “performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens,” the White House said in announcing the recipients.
The presidential medals, which go through a less rigorous approval process than other awards like Medals of Honor or acts of clemency, represent an opportunity for a president to showcase those who have fought for causes he championed.
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Cheney, a one-time Republican member of Congress, served as vice chair of the House of Representatives select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. In October, she urged Americans to reject Trump’s “depraved cruelty” as she rallied alongside Democratic White House candidate Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the presidential election.
Biden is reportedly considering a pre-emptive pardon to protect her from retribution by the next administration. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, said last month he backed a call for the FBI to investigate Cheney over her role leading the congressional probe.
Congressman Bennie G. Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi who served as the chairman of the Jan. 6 House select committee, will also be awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Other honorees include attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage and argued before the Supreme Court in the landmark marriage-equality case Obergefell v. Hodges, and lawyer and activist Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage-equality movement.
Veterans, health-care advocates and former lawmakers with close, decades-long ties to Biden are also on the list.
They include former senators Ted Kaufman, a Democrat from Delaware, and Chris Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, as well as two-time NBA champion and former senator Bill Bradley, a New York Democrat.
(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Frances Kerry)
