Rep. Liz Cheney Dealt a Blow from Wyoming GOP Over Impeachment Vote
The Wyoming Republican Party voted overwhelmingly Saturday to censure U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney for voting to impeach President Donald Trump.
Only eight of the 74 members of the state GOP’s central committee opposed censure in a vote that didn’t proceed to a formal count.
The censure document accused Cheney of voting to impeach even though the U.S. House didn’t offer Trump “formal hearing or due process.”
“We need to honor President Trump. All President Trump did was call for a peaceful assembly and protest for a fair and audited election,” said Darin Smith, a Cheyenne attorney who lost to Cheney in the Republican U.S. House primary in 2016. “The Republican Party needs to put her on notice.”
Joey Correnti, GOP chairman in Carbon County where the censure vote was held, added: “Does the voice of the people matter and if it does, does it only matter at the ballot box?”
Cheney in a statement after the vote said she remained honored to represent Wyoming and will always fight for issues that matter most to the state.
“Foremost among these is the defense of our Constitution and the freedoms it guarantees. My vote to impeach was compelled by the oath I swore to the Constitution,” Cheney said.
Republican officials said they invited Cheney but she didn’t attend. An empty chair labeled “Representative Cheney” sat at the front of the meeting room.
The censure vote was the latest blow for Cheney after she joined nine Republicans and all Democrats in the U.S. House in the Jan. 13 impeachment vote.
Just three months after winning a third term with almost 70 percent of the vote, Cheney already faces at least two Republican primary opponents in 2022.
They include Republican state Sen. Anthony Bouchard, a gun rights activist from Cheyenne, who was at the meeting. Smith also has said he is considering whether to run for Congress again.
On Jan. 28, Republican U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida led a rally against Cheney in front of the Wyoming Capitol. About 1,000 people took part, many of them carrying signs calling for Cheney’s impeachment.
Cheney will remain as the third-ranking member of the House GOP leadership, however, after a 145-61 vote by House Republicans on Wednesday to keep her as conference committee chair.
Trump faces trial in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday over allegedly inciting insurrection when a mob stormed into the Capitol as Congress was meeting to certify Electoral College votes.
Some Wyoming Republicans opposed the censure.
“Let’s resist this infusion of left-wing cancel culture to try to censure and get rid of anybody we disagree with,” Alexander Muromcew with the Teton County GOP said.
Momentum for censure had been growing for weeks as local Republicans in around a dozen of Wyoming’s 23 counties passed their own resolutions criticizing her impeachment vote.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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