Rep. Liz Cheney announces she will vote to impeach Trump
Rep. Liz Cheney, the third most powerful Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, announced Tuesday that she would be voting to impeach President Trump for his role in last week’s siege of the Capitol.
The Wyoming congresswoman issued a statement late Tuesday in which she said she would vote in favor of an article of impeachment introduced by Democrats that will be brought to a vote on Wednesday.
"The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney wrote in a statement. “Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. 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.”
Democrats began calling for the president’s impeachment shortly after the attack by Trump supporters on Capitol halted the certification of Biden’s Electoral College win and resulted in the deaths of five people. So far, Cheney is the highest ranking Republican to indicate she will join the effort to remove Trump from office.
“I will vote to impeach the President," Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, said in her statement.
Cheney’s announcement came minutes after Rep. John Katko of New York became the first Republican in the House to state he would vote to impeach the president.
“It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection — both on social media ahead of January 6th, and in his speech that day," Katko wrote in a statement, adding, "To allow the President of the United States to incite this attack without consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy. For that reason, I cannot sit by without taking action. I will vote to impeach this President."
No House Republicans voted against the president in December of 2019 when he was impeached along party lines for soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 election. The New York Times reported earlier Tuesday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was pleased that the impeachment effort was moving forward, as he felt it would make it easier for the party to separate itself from Trump. The Times also reported that Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the highest-ranking House Republican, was soliciting advice on whether he should ask the president to resign.
Trump has shown no remorse for his role in the violence on Jan. 6, calling his speech that immediately preceded the storming of the Capitol “totally appropriate” on Tuesday morning. In December, Trump, on his now frozen Twitter account, urged supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, promising a “wild” time. He spoke for over an hour at the “Save America” rally prior to the assault on the Capitol, telling supporters, “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
During the speech Trump also called for someone to primary Cheney, saying, “And we got to get rid of the weak congresspeople, the ones that aren’t any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world.”
“When you catch somebody in a fraud, you are allowed to go by very different rules,” Trump said, demanding that Vice President Mike Pence refuse to accept the Electoral College slates from several states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden.
“If Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election,” Trump said. Pence, who constitutional experts said had no choice in the matter, declined to follow Trump’s order.
Surging into the Capitol shortly after Trump finished speaking, a large group of his supporters broke into the Capitol and chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!”
Hours later, as police attempted to clear the building, Trump posted a video telling the rioters it was time to “go home.” He repeated his baseless claim that the election was “stolen” from him and told the hundreds who had committed federal crimes that they were “very special” and “we love you.”
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