U.S. President Joe Biden is set to award the nation’s second highest civilian honor to 20 people at a White House ceremony Thursday.
The recipients of the Presidential Citizens Medal include Congressman Bennie Thompson and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Cheney, who led a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob seeking to disrupt the certification of Biden’s 2020 election win over Donald Trump.
Trump, who won the 2024 election for a new term starting later this month, has said Thompson and Cheney should be jailed.
A White House statement about Thursday’s honorees said Cheney, a Republican, “raised her voice—and reached across the aisle—to defend our Nation and the ideals we stand for: Freedom. Dignity. And decency.”
The statement said Thompson was “at the forefront of defending the rule of law with unwavering integrity and a steadfast commitment to truth.”
Created in 1969, the Presidential Citizens Medal honors citizens “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”
“President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others,” the White House said. “The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”
Also being honored Thursday are Mary Bonauto and Evan Wolfson, who worked to legalize same-sex marriage in the United States.
Frank Butler is another medal recipient, with the White House highlighting his effort to set standards for the use of tourniquets and saying he “transformed battlefield trauma care for the United States military and saved countless lives.”
Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi is being honored for her successful legal challenge against the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Biden is honoring Eleanor Smeal for her work in leading women’s rights protests and fighting for equal pay for women.
Medals are being awarded to a former congresswoman, Carolyn McCarthy, and a group of former U.S. senators: Bill Bradley, Chris Dodd, Nancy Kassebaum and Ted Kaufman.
Other honorees include Diane Carlson Evans, founder of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation, war correspondent Joseph Galloway, civil rights advocate Louis Redding and photographer Bobby Sager.
Judge Collins Seitz, Fulbright University Vietnam founder Thomas Vallely, breast cancer research advocate Frances Visco and Savannah College of Art and Design founder Paula Wallace are also receiving the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press
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