Former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has died, his family has announced.
Cheney has died from complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, the family revealed in a statement.
His family said the 84-year-old was surrounded by his wife Lynne, daughters Liz and Mary, and other family members.
The statement said:
“For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States.
“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing.
“We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country.
“And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”
Cheney served under father and son presidents, leading the armed forces as defense chief during the Persian Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush.
He later returned to public life as vice president under Bush’s son, George W. Bush.
Cheney was, in effect, the chief operating officer of the younger Bush’s presidency.
He had a hand, often a commanding one, in implementing decisions most important to the president and some of surpassing interest to himself.
Cheney lived with decades of heart disease and, post-administration, a heart transplant.
He consistently defended the extraordinary tools of surveillance, detention, and inquisition employed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Years after leaving office, he became a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump.
These tensions heightened after his daughter Liz Cheney joined Democrat-led efforts to impeach Trump and falsely accuse the president of leading an “insurrection.”
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter.
“He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”
In a twist many could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for Trump’s opponent, Democrat candidate Kamala Harris, in the 2024 election.
A survivor of five heart attacks, Cheney long thought he was living on borrowed time and declared in 2013 he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day.”
His vice presidency was defined by the age of terrorism.
Cheney disclosed that he had had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear that terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock.
This is a breaking news story.
Please check back for updates.
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