Joe Biden has bestowed the second highest civilian medal on the Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson and the Republican former congresswoman Liz Cheney, who led the bipartisan congressional investigation into the deadly 6 January 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters intent on overturning his election defeat by Biden.
Trump, who takes office again on 20 January after winning November’s election, has said the leaders of that committee, which published its conclusions in December 2022 after a series of high-profile public hearings, should be jailed, not rewarded.
Biden, the outgoing US president, awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal to 20 people in a White House ceremony late on Thursday afternoon.
“Together, you embody the central truth: we’re a great nation because we’re a good people,” he told those in the room. “Our democracy begins and ends with the duties of citizenship. That’s our work for the ages and it’s what all of you embody.”
A federal judge Monday ordered the U.S. Justice Department to provide a sworn declaration by noon...
