Conservatives are ripping President Biden for awarding the Presidential Citizens Medal — America’s second-highest civilian honor, behind only the Medal of Freedom — to Congresswoman Liz Cheney for her work as vice chairwoman of the Select Committee to Investigate January 6, which made criminal referrals against President Trump.

The award comes as speculation swirls about whether Ms. Cheney could be investigated by the Justice Department regarding accusations she engaged in illegal witness tampering during her committee work. The White House announced Ms. Cheney, a Republican, would receive the Citizens Medal in a statement on Thursday. They also said the president would award the same medal to Congressman Bennie Thompson, who led the Select January 6 Committee with Ms. Cheney. 

“Throughout two decades in public service, including as a Congresswoman for Wyoming and Vice Chair of the Committee on the January 6 attack, Liz Cheney has raised her voice — and reached across the aisle — to defend our Nation and the ideals we stand for: Freedom. Dignity. And decency,” the White House said. “Her integrity and intrepidness remind us all what is possible if we work together.”

Republicans were quick to criticize the move, saying Ms. Cheney — who campaigned with Vice President Harris as an anti-Trump Republican — was nothing more than a Trump hater. 

“President Biden was either going to pardon Liz Cheney or give her an award,” Senator Barrasso, who represented Wyoming in the congressional delegation alongside Ms. Cheney for six years, told the Cowboy State Daily. “She doesn’t deserve either. She represents partisanship and divisiveness — not Wyoming.”

Trump’s senior advisor, Jason Miller, called the decision to give Ms. Cheney the medal “pathetic” given the New Year’s Day attacks at New Orleans and Las Vegas that left, combined, 16 dead and nearly 40 injured. 

“Pathetic. With attacks happening in the United States and around the world, THIS is how Biden is spending his time today?” Mr. Miller wrote. 

A former Fox News and ABC News journalist, Brit Hume, wrote on X that, “This is repulsive. That investigation was done by a committee all of whose members were chosen by Nancy Pelosi, and was produced like a TV show. There was no cross examination of witnesses. The media fell for it, but it was utterly one-sided. A show trial.”

Other anti-war influencers who have in the past defended Trump also say that awarding the Citizens Medal is a mistake given Ms. Cheney’s policy record. Journalist Glenn Greenwald implied in an X post that Mr. Biden isn’t even the one making the decision. 

“Having ‘Joe Biden,’ as one of his last acts, bestow a presidential medal on Liz Cheney says so much about the value system of the Democratic Party,” Mr. Greenwald wrote. “Liz Cheney was and is a vocal advocate of the Iraq war, occupation of Afghanistan, regime change wars in Syria and Libya, and — oh yeah — torture, Guantanamo, rendition, warrantless spying, and every War on Terror abuse.” He appears to have also been referring to Ms. Cheney’s father, Vice President Cheney, an architect of the second Bush Administration’s hardline response to Al Qaeda and other terror groups.

One leader at the Conservative Partnership Institute — a Washington D.C. conservative think tank run by Trump’s final chief of staff, Mark Meadows — also weighed in. The organization’s vice president of programs, Rachel Bovard, said on X that the Citizens Medal “doesn’t immunize Liz Cheney from federal charges for witness tampering.”

Ms. Cheney has already faced a congressional investigation for her role as the top Republican on the January 6 Committee. Congressman Barry Loudermilk, who leads an investigative subcommittee in the House, recently released a report calling for criminal investigations into Ms. Cheney for alleged witness tampering and destruction of evidence. 

Ms. Cheney was accused by Mr. Loudermilk of colluding with star witness Cassidy Hutchinson’s attorneys to get her to fabricate a story about Trump attacking one of his Secret Service detail agents on January 6, 2021 in the presidential limousine and trying to get them to take him to the Capitol. Trump, his deputy chief of staff who was in the car, and others have refuted that story. 

Mr. Loudermilk also pointed to tranches of evidence that apparently went missing after the January 6 probe was shut down and his own investigation into the committee began. He claimed in his report that he faced headwinds such as “missing and deleted documents, hidden evidence, unaccounted for video footage, and uncooperative bureaucrats” during his investigation. 

In a statement, Ms. Cheney, who due to her anti-Trump activities was removed from the Republican House leadership in 2021, then ousted from the House entirely after she was primaried in 2022,  has denied all accusations of witness tampering and the like, saying that no judge or lawyer “would take this seriously.”