Rep. Liz Cheney reiterated Sunday morning that she has no plans to resign from Congress — even after Republicans in her home state of Wyoming voted to censure her for voting to impeach Donald Trump.
“I’m not” going to step down, Cheney told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “I think people all across Wyoming understand and recognize that our most important duty is to the Constitution. And as I’ve explained — and will continue to explain — to supporters all across the state and voters all across the state, the oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment.”
The Wyoming Republican Party voted overwhelmingly Saturday to censure the Republican, with just eight of the 74 members of the Wyoming central committee opposing the move. Cheney did not personally attend the meeting. In their letter, Wyoming Republicans said that Cheney “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.”
But Cheney argued on “Fox News Sunday” that people should consider the context of the letter, which falsely claims that BLM and Antifa supporters instigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
“I think you have to read the language of the censure, partly,” Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, added. “I think, you know, that people in the party are mistaken. They believe that BLM and Antifa were behind what happened here at the Capitol. It’s just simply not the case. It’s not true. And we’re going to have a lot of work we have to do. People have been lied to.”
Cheney also faced a challenge to her leadership in the House last week, with the House Republican Conference voting on whether she should be ousted as chair of the conference. Ultimately, GOP lawmakers voted 145 to 61 to allow Cheney to retain her post.
With the Senate impeachment trial kicking off this week, Cheney urged the Senate jurors to pay close attention to the testimony and evidence.
“If I were in the Senate, I would listen to the testimony,” she said. “I would listen to the evidence. If you’re a senator, you have a responsibility to be a juror and I think that’s very important, but I obviously believe — and did then — that what we already know is enough for his impeachment. What we already know does constitute the greatest violation of his oath of office by any president in the history of this country.
“This is not something that we can simply look past or pretend didn’t happen or try to move on,” Cheney said. “We’ve got to make sure this never happens again.”
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) offered some carefully phrased praise of Cheney on CNN’s “Inside Politics.”
“I’m afraid to say anything good about Ms. Cheney, I might get her in trouble,” Dingell said, “but she voted her conscience and we’re all going to have to find some ways to put all of this bickering aside because the American people are counting on us to get some things done.”