The Central Committee of the Carbon County Republican Party in Wyoming announced Sunday it had formally censured Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) for voting in favor of impeaching President Donald Trump last week.
Cheney, the House Republican Conference chair, has received blowback after being the highest-ranking Republican of ten who broke with the party by voting last Wednesday to impeach Trump for his alleged role in the deadly U.S. Capitol riot that took place earlier this month.
The House passed one impeachment article against Trump, 232–197, for “incitement of insurrection.”
Cheney, siding with House Democrats, reasoned Trump had “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing.” She argued the president “could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not.”
In its censure resolution, the Carbon County GOP admonished Cheney for voting without sufficient evidence. The resolution stated:
Representative Cheney has violated the trust of her voters, failed to faithfully represent a very large majority of motivated Wyoming voters, and neglected her duty to represent the party and the will of the people who elected her to represent them.
On Thursday, the state Republican Party published a scathing list of issues it, too, had with Cheney’s vote, writing that “there has not been a time during our tenure when we have seen this type of an outcry from our fellow Republicans, with the anger and frustration being palpable in the comments we have received.”
Over the weekend, state Republican Party chairman Frank Eathorne went as far as to broach the idea of Wyoming seceding from the United States over the matter. Eathorne’s suggestion, however, was met with some objection, with one official saying to the Washington Examiner, “This is the kind of nonsense that’s coming to define the GOP, and it represents an existential threat to the party.”
When Breitbart News asked if Cheney was concerned about failing to represent her constituency, a spokesman pointed to a press interview that took place after her vote in which Cheney said, “I will continue to talk to and hear from my constituents all over Wyoming. But when it came down to it, the president the United States incited a mob to attack and interrupt the democratic process.”
“And then, while the violence played out, the president refused to take steps to stop it,” Cheney continued. “In my mind, those are absolutely high crimes and misdemeanors. There’s just simply no question. This was a vote that could not have anything to do with party or with politics.”
In addition to the criticism from her state, several colleagues, including Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), lashed out at Cheney over her decision, calling for her to resign from her House Republican Conference chair position. “We ought to have a second vote,” Jordan, the House Freedom Caucus chair, said. “The conference ought to vote on that.”
Cheney has rejected such calls, saying, “I’m not going anywhere,” according to Politico, but the outlet reported Wednesday that as many as half of the House Republican Conference members would consider voting to oust her from her leadership role.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com.