Cheney faces calls to resign from GOP after impeachment vote
The No. 3 Republican in the House said Trump 'summoned' the mob that attacked the Capitol last week
Several of Trump’s GOP loyalists have called on Representative Liz Cheney to resign from leadership after she supported the push to impeach the president.
theGRIO previously reported, the Wyoming congresswoman, the No. 3 Republican in the House, said in a statement on Tuesday that Trump “summoned” the mob that attacked the Capitol last week, “assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack.”
“Everything that followed was his doing,” she added.
Read More: GOP Rep. Cheney says she will vote to impeach Trump
Cheney said Trump failed to immediately intervene to stop his supporters, and for that she would vote to remove him from office.
Now, some of Trump’s closest allies are calling for Cheney to be ousted from her role as Republican conference chair.
Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican and Representatives Matt Rosendale of Montana and Andy Biggs of Arizona want Cheney to step down, Bloomberg reports.
“The conference ought to vote on that,” Jordan told reporters on Wednesday. “I think she’s wrong.”
Rosendale said Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney is “weakening” the Republican party for “personal gain.”
Cheney fired back at her critical colleagues, telling reporters Wednesday that she’s “not going anywhere.”
“This is a vote of conscience,” she said. “It’s one where there are different views in our conference. But our nation is facing an unprecedented, since the Civil War, constitutional crisis. That’s what we need to be focused on.”
Read More: Republican Liz Cheney causes GOP infighting over Trump critiques
Meanwhile, several Republicans have come to Cheney’s defense, including freshman Rep. Nancy Mace and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who said “Liz should be commended, not condemned, for standing up in defense of the Constitution and standing true to her beliefs.”
On Tuesday (Jan. 13), a majority of the U.S. House voted to impeach President Donald Trump for a second time, just a week after he encouraged loyalists to “fight like hell” against election results, per The Associated Press.
While Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 brought no Republican votes in the House, at least eight House Republicans announced that they would break with the party to join Democrats this time, saying Trump violated his oath to protect and defend U.S. democracy.
In a statement on Tuesday, Cheney said there has “never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
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