Republican Representative Liz Cheney is calling on her colleagues to distance themselves from Donald Trump ahead of his impeachment trial, NBC News reports.
Trump’s trial is set to begin on Feb. 9. Yet, Wyoming Rep. Cheney told “Fox News Sunday” that the party needs to take an introspective look at itself before continuing to support Trump.
“We have to take a really hard look at who we are and what we stand for, what we believe in,” Cheney said. “I think that when you look at both [Trump’s] actions leading up to Jan. 6, that he was impeached in a bipartisan fashion, the fact that he lost the presidency, the fact that we lost the Senate. We have to be in a position where we can say we stand for principles, for ideals. … We should not be embracing the former president.”
Cheney is the third-ranking House Republican and one of 10 House Republicans to vote in favor of impeaching Trump. Cheney’s decision to go against Trump created a lot of friction. Though she was censured by her state party, Cheney was able to vote of confidence last week to remain House Republican Conference chair.
Her recent comments about Trump and the Republican party follows Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago late last month. McCarthy also takes a soft stance when it comes to Trump’s hand in inciting the Capitol riots. Also, several other party members like Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Roger Wicker, and Sen. Bill Cassidy are standing by Trump.
As the impeachment trial approaches, it’s highly unlikely that Trump will get convicted since 45 Senate Republicans sought to declare Trump’s impeachment trial unconstitutional and 67 votes are needed to find Trump guilty. Still, Cheney thinks it's imperative to put morals over political lines.
“There’s a massive criminal investigation underway, there will be a massive criminal investigation of everything that happened on Jan. 6 and in the days before,” she said. “People will want to know exactly what the president was doing. They will want to know, for example, whether the tweet that he sent out calling Vice President Pence a coward while the attack was underway, whether that tweet, for example, was a premeditated effort to provoke violence.”
“What we already know does constitute the greatest violation of his oath of office by any president in the history of the country,” she continued. “And this is not something that we can simply look past or pretend didn’t happen or try and move on. We’ve got to make sure this never happens again.”
