House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney said Sunday she will remain in office despite the Wyoming Republican Party’s call for her to resign over her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump.
The state party’s central committee voted overwhelmingly Saturday to censure Ms. Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican who joined nine other House Republicans and all House Democrats in voting in favor of impeaching Mr. Trump in the Jan. 13 vote.
The censure motion called for her to resign immediately.
Asked by host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” if she planned to step down, Ms. Cheney said “I’m not,” then defended her impeachment vote.
“I think people all across Wyoming understand and recognize that our most important duty is to the Constitution,” she said. “And as I’ve explained and will continue to explain to supporters all across the state and voters all across the state, the oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment and it doesn’t bend to partisanship, it doesn’t bend to political pressure.”
She said that some Wyoming Republicans were mistaken about the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that triggered the impeachment, citing language in the censure document that blamed Black Lives Matter and Antifa.
“I think, you know, that people in the party are mistaken,” said Ms. Cheney. “They believe that BLM and Antifa were behind what happened here at the Capitol. It’s just simply not the case, not true and we’re going to have a lot of work we have to do.”
Ms. Cheney survived comfortably a 145-61 vote by the House Republicans last week to keep her leadership post, but the censure vote raises questions about her ability to retain her seat in a state that overwhelmingly supported Mr. Trump.
She declined to say whether she would vote to convict Mr. Trump if she sat in the Senate, saying that she would “listen to the evidence.
“But I, obviously, believe and did then that what we already know is enough for his impeachment,” said Ms. Cheney. “What we already know does constitute the gravest violation of his oath of office by any president in the history of the country, and this is not something that we can simply look past or pretend didn’t happen or try to move on. We’ve got to make sure this never happens again.”
She said that Republicans need to be sure “we are being honest about what really did happen in 2020 so we actually have a chance to win in 2022 and win the White House back in 2024.
“People have been lied to,” Ms. Cheney said. “The extent to which the president, President Trump for months leading up to Jan. 6 spread the notion that the election had been stolen or that the election was rigged was a lie and people need to understand that.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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