Rep Liz Cheney gives speech on House floor before vote to remove her from her House leadership role as conference chair, says former president Trump's insistence that the presidential election was rigged is bogus and that "those who refuse to accept the ruling of our courts are at war with the constitution"....By editor Kathy Wray Coleman of Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's Black and alternative digital news leaders
WASHINGTON, D.C. —U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming stood firm on Tuesday and gave a historical speech in the House chamber hours before her fellow Republicans prepare to oust her from her congressional leadership role in the midst of an all out fight with former president Donald Trump and congressional Republicans over Trump's claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
The ouster vote will take place on Wed, May 12, and by voice of Republicans.
The daughter of ex-vice president Dick Cheney, the younger Cheney, 54, has been a member of Congress since 2017, winning reelection in 2020 for another two-year term over her opponent, Democrat Lynnette Grey Bull, and with 68 percent of the vote.
She represents Wyoming's at-large district and is the House Republican Conference chair, the third-highest position in the House Republican leadership.
She Is the third woman elected to that position after Deborah Pryce and Cathy McMorris Rodgers
She spoke Tuesday night without her colleagues by her side after Republicans stomped out of chambers.
And only one Republican colleague stuck around to hear her speech.
She criticized them nonetheless, saying they are acting irresponsibly in downplaying the Jan 6 attempted insurrection on the Capitol Building that left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer.
In blasting Trump, Cheney said "the president formed the mob, the president incited the mob, the president addressed the mob. He lit the flame."
By embracing Trump's unfounded claims of widespread election fraud which was the impetus for the celebrated riot, they are undermining the democracy, the congresswoman said.
“Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar,” Rep. Cheney said from the House floor. “I will not participate in that. I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president’s crusade to undermine our democracy.”
A social and fiscal conservative, Cheney said Trump put the nation at risk and provoked a violent attack on his own Capitol “in an effort to steal the election,” and that his lies about an unconstitutional and otherwise illegal election are bogus as court after court after court continues to deny his petitions to overturn the results in his favor.
An attorney turned congresswoman, Cheney drew on the constitution, saying "those who refuse to accept the ruling of our courts are at war with the constitution."
Her critics, mainly Trump supporters, say she should have stepped down as conference chair as the controversy with her own party broadened, and that Republicans will target her congressional seat in 2022, though she remains popular in her congressional district.
They say she cannot stay on message, voting in Trump policies as a federal legislator and then calling for his impeachment last year, but to no avail.
Trump, Republican's say, and in spite of polls that might disagree, is their best chance, if any, at regaining the Senate and the House, and hopefully the White House in 2024.
Democrats who like Cheney said her speech Tuesday was powerful, and that she could help bridge the partisan divide.
Senate Minority Leader Mich McConnell of Kentucky dodged questions on Cheney, reporters said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said Cheney is under attack by the Republican leadership for 'speaking power to truth' regarding the presidential election.
Rep Kevin McCarthty, the House minority leader, said Sunday that he supports Cheney's ouster from her leadership post as conference chair as well as her likely replacement, Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Stefanik represents New York's 21st congressional district.
She opposed impeachment proceedings for Trump in 2020 that were in response to the Capitol siege he was accused of inciting, the second failed impeachment attempt against the then president, and is considered a Trump ally, moving from a moderate when she was first elected to Congress in 2014 to a conservative in recent years.
A one-term president, Trump lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, a former vice president who served with former president Barack Obama.
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