EXCLUSIVE: Liz Cheney open to political run

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By Joseph Weber

EXCLUSIVE:

The daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that running for political office is on her horizon.

"It's something I very well may do," said Elizabeth "Liz" Cheney, a lawyer and State Department appointee who has worked on two Republican presidential campaigns.

Ms. Cheney, 44, has emerged as one of the strongest defenders of the effectiveness and legality of Bush-Cheney policies on enhanced interrogation methods. More recently, she and her father have become two of the most outspoken critics of President Obama's position on terrorism and other national security issues, which has led Republicans to consider her a strong candidate for national political office.

Ms. Cheney told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" that recent new reports that her father ordered the CIA to hide information from Congress and that a government probe could follow appears like political cover for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats who have accused agency Director Leon Panetta of lying.

"It gets more and more appalling every day," she said. "I think they're very worried about Speaker Pelosi."

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She said Monday that her immediate interests are raising her five children and helping her father write his memoirs.

Ms. Cheney worked on the 2008 presidential campaign of Republican candidates Fred Thompson, then Mitt Romney.

She has held two State Department appointments. Her first was in the late 1980 before graduating from the University of Chicago Law School. The second was in 2002 as a deputy secretary for Near Eastern affairs. Ms. Cheney left to work on her father's 2004 re-election campaign but returned in 2005 in an expanded post as a deputy secretary for economic and political affairs in the Near and Middle East as well as in North Africa.

Ms. Cheney also has worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development and for a private practice in international law. She is married to Philip Perry, a Department of Homeland Security attorney.

"I've spent a lot of time promoting democracy around the world," Ms. Cheney said Monday. "It has made me really grateful for our system and has given me a real understanding of how important it is to participate."