Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois - the last of a dying Republican breed?
An ally of Donald Trump and a former campaign adviser is pressuring the Republican National Committee (RNC) to officially expel Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois from the party, according to The Washington Post.
The contentious resolution submitted by David Bossie, a conservative activist and RNC committee member from Maryland, will likely come to a head later this week at the RNC's annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. Bossie's main beef with the pair is the fact that they serve on the select committee investigating Jan. 6 along with their efforts to "destroy President Trump," as he put it. The resolution is co-sponsored by Frank Eathorne, state chair of the Wyoming Republican Party.
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel has not given any indication of what she plans to do about the resolution, but the issue is just one more distraction for a Republican Party that has hoped to make the midterms entirely about the policies of President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats.
Reached for comment by the Post, Cheney issued a blistering rebuke of the resolution and the party's leadership.
“The leaders of the Republican Party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to ‘overturn’ a presidential election and suggests he would pardon Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy,” Cheney said. “I’m a constitutional conservative and I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump. History will be their judge. I will never stop fighting for our constitutional republic. No matter what.”
"Willing hostages" is exactly right. Supposed GOP leaders chose to keep Trump in the mix, and for the bulk of this year they will spend every day living out the consequences of that choice.
Cheney, who is no longer recognized by the Wyoming State GOP, faces a difficult (but perhaps not hopeless) path to reelection this year, taking on Trump-endorsed candidate Harriet Hagemon and a handful of others in the GOP primary. Kinzinger has announced he will not run for reelection.
Bossie got one thing right: Cheney has made it her mission in life to "destroy" Trump,
and she is leveraging her post as vice chair of the Jan. 6 panel to do
exactly that. But if Cheney misses her mark, her future in the party is
over regardless of whether she manages to win reelection this cycle.
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