From left to right: Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, former President George W. Bush, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images and Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
- George W. Bush maxed out his political donations by contributing to Liz Cheney and Lisa Murkowski’s campaigns.
- Both supported impeaching Trump for inciting an insurrection and now face Trump-backed primary challengers.
- Bush has also held a fundraiser for Cheney and condemned the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Former President George W. Bush gave the maximum allowed political contributions to Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, two Republicans who supported impeaching former President Donald Trump over the January 6 Capitol riot.
According to new disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission, Bush gave Cheney $5,800 on October 28, 2021 for both the general and primary elections. On December 31, 2021, he also gave Murkowski $2,900 for her primary. The FEC sets this limit on political contributions.
Cheney, the daughter of Bush’s own vice president, Dick Cheney, and an outspoken Trump critic, now serves as the lead Republican on the House Select Committee investigating January 6. She will face off against Harriet Hageman, a former RNC official who has been endorsed by Trump, in an August primary. Cheney has outraised Hageman by more than four to one, FEC disclosures show.
In Alaska, Murkowski faces Kelly Tshibaka, a former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Administration. Given her relatively moderate voting record, Murkowski has long been vulnerable to primary challenges, and she waged a successful write-in campaign in 2010 after losing that year’s Republican primary.
Tshibaka is one of just a couple of GOP senate candidates — the other being the scandal-plagued former Missouri Gov. Eric Grietens — who’s called for Sen. Mitch McConnell to lose his place atop the Senate Republican Caucus.
Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting an insurrection on January 6, while Murkowski was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict him.
FEC records indicate that Bush didn’t make any other political contributions in 2021 before October.
In addition to these personal contributions, Bush held a fundraiser for Cheney in Dallas last fall, and has repeatedly condemned the attacks on January 6. On the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, Bush compared domestic right-wing extremists to the 9/11 perpetrators.
“There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home,” Bush said during a speech in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. “But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them.”
