Arizona’s Attorney General Kris Mayes on Tuesday said she has ended an investigation into Donald Trump’s comments about Liz Cheney being a war hawk, stating that the comments were protected speech.
Mayes told reporters at the Arizona Republic that the comment “very likely may have been an effort to intimidate Cheney” but the investigation showed there was “no reasonable likelihood that we could obtain a conviction for Trump’s statements.”
"We think it's equally likely a reasonable person could conclude Trump was discussing war, and Liz Cheney not wanting to go to war," she said.
In speaking to Tucker Carlson during a Halloween day campaign event, Trump said Cheney might be not so inclined to advocate for war if she experienced it herself.
“She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” Trump said at a campaign event. “Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Many in the media conflated the situation, stating that Trump had threatened her, an assessment Cheney agreed with.
“This is how dictators destroy free nations,” Cheney said. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
Many others in the media who have been staunchly anti-Trump, however, thought that characterization was dishonest and hurtful to the political process.
“Donald Trump did not call for the execution of Liz Cheney,” said Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks. “That is a bald-faced lie. He was making a point about how she is a chickenhawk.”
Mayes, a Democrat, had opened the investigation to see if Trump’s remarks qualified as a death threat, but said Tuesday they do not meet the legal standard to be considered a threat.
What Did He Say?
During that Halloween day event in Arizona, Trump had called Cheney a “radical war hawk” and a “deranged person” whose desires for war were rooted in her lack of intimate understanding of it.
She came up in conversation after Carlson had asked Trump how he felt about Cheney campaigning against him despite her father, Dick Cheney, having been a Republican and former vice president.
"You know, they are all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building and they say, let’s send 10,000 troops into the mouth of the enemy,” he said. “They’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, ‘Oh gee, let’s send 10,000 troops into the mouths of the enemies.’ She always wanted to go to war with people.”
A war hawk is generally known in political circles as someone who supports foreign military intervention and proactive military actions. Cheney’s father and former Vice President Dick Cheney also has been called a war hawk.
In response to the public outrage over the war remark, the Trump campaign on Friday said that Cheney might be less hawkish if she were the one doing the fighting.
“President Trump is 100% correct that warmongers like Liz Cheney are very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
Election Probe Still Open
Mayes said she considered Trump’s comment “akin to a threat” and “disgusting,” and that the Arizona AG’s office will continue its case against Trump for his 2020 electors claims.
“We’re going to stay focused on the case we brought,” said Mayes. “Those are serious charges, they are state charges and they are not affected one bit by Donald Trump’s reelection to the presidency.”
Cheney, who campaigned extensively for Vice President Kamala Harris, has said nothing publicly since making a statement on where she accepted Trump’s victory.
“All Americans are bound, whether we like the outcome or not, to accept the results of our elections,” she posted. “We now have a special responsibility, as citizens of the greatest nation on Earth, to do everything we can to support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
