Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming said Tuesday she will vote to impeach President Trump for inciting the mob that attacked the Capitol last week, becoming the highest-ranking House Republican to join the impeachment effort.
“The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” the conservative lawmaker said in a statement. “Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the president.”
She said, “I will vote to impeach the president.”
She joins Republican Rep. John Katko of New York, who announced earlier in the day that he will vote to impeach Mr. Trump. More House Republicans are expected to vote with them.
Later, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Illinois Republican, confirmed that he will also vote to impeach Mr. Trump.
He said the president is responsible for whipping up “an angry mob” and that Mr. Trump “broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection.”
Ms. Cheney is the House Republican Conference chair, the third-ranking GOP lawmaker. She said Mr. Trump last Wednesday provoked “a violent mob [that] attacked the United States Capitol to obstruct the process of our democracy and stop the counting of presidential electoral votes.”
“This insurrection caused injury, death and destruction in the most sacred space in our Republic,” she said. “Much more will become clear in coming days and weeks, but what we know now is enough. The president could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
Ms. Cheney is the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Mr. Trump had singled out Ms. Cheney by name in his speech last Wednesday.
“We got to remember, in a year from now, you’re going to start working on Congress,” he said. “And we got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good. The Liz Cheneys of the world — we got to get rid of them.”
• David Sherfinski contributed to this report.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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