Liz Cheney says Nancy Pelosi didn't care about any of the bad things she said about Pelosi before she appointed Cheney to the Jan. 6 committee

• Liz Cheney said she had barely talked to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi before a critical phone call.
• Pelosi, Cheney wrote in her new book, called to ask her to serve on the January 6 committee.

Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney says she never had a lengthy conversation with Nancy Pelosi before the then-House Speaker asked her to join the House January 6 committee.

Their odd-couple relationship, Cheney wrote in her new book, ended up being critical to a sprawling investigation that became one of the largest in the lengthy history of congressional probes. As a sign of just how unusual it was, Cheney said she later found out that a Pelosi staffer tried to talk the speaker out of her unusual request.

"Later, I would learn that when the Speaker was deciding whether to appoint me, her staff pulled together a list of the 10 worst things I ever said about her," Cheney wrote in "Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning" which was published on Tuesday. "Speaker Pelosi took one look at the list, handed it back to her staffer, and asked, 'Why are you wasting my time with things that don't matter?'"

While it's not clear what was on the list, Cheney had taken a number of shots at Pelosi over the years. As a Fox News commentator, Cheney defended her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, by quoting former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, musing that Pelosi's "spine doesn't seem to reach her brain." Pelosi has been harshly critical of Dick Cheney's involvement in the Bush-era use of what was effectively torture during the War on Terror. In 2018, Cheney was elected to House leadership, a post where she regularly criticized Pelosi's policies.

Despite their history, Cheney praised Pelosi as a critical ally anytime the January 6 committee confronted a difficulty.

"[O]ver the next 18 months, every time I went to her with a concern, a proposed approach, or a request that she intervene with Democrats to help guide things in the right direction, she backed me up. Every time," Cheney wrote. "A relationship that had been unimaginable just a few months earlier would now become indispensable."

Cheney was further ostracized from the GOP for serving on the January 6 committee. After then-House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled his nominees, Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois ended up being the only two Republicans to serve on the panel. Cheney later lost her primary battle by over 37 points.

Pelosi, whose office did not respond to a request for comment, has repeatedly praised Liz Cheney. She even welcome Dick Cheney to the House chamber on January 6, 2022, when he and Liz Cheney were the only two Republicans in the chamber to mark the anniversary of the Capitol riot.