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Representative Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Called on her colleagues to interrupt former President Donald Trump as his second Senate impeachment trial is set to begin this week.
Cheney, the third House Republican, was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment last month for his role in the Jan.6 riot on Capitol Hill. Cheney was censored by her state party for the vote and faces a major challenge, although she easily won a confidence vote last week to remain speaker of the House Republican Conference.
“We have to take a very careful look at who we are and what we stand for, what we believe in,” Cheney told Fox News Sunday. “I think when you look at both [Trump’s] actions leading up to January 6, that he was bipartisan indictment, the fact that he lost the presidency, the fact that we lost the Senate. We must be able to say that we are defending principles, ideals. “
“We should not be kissing the former president,” she added.
Cheney’s comments come after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of R-Calif. Met Trump in Mar-a-Lago late last month and has since toned down his rhetoric about the role of Trump in the riot.
After a vote in which 45 Senate Republicans sought to declare Trump’s impeachment trial unconstitutional because he had already left office, it seems highly unlikely that the former president will be convicted as at least 67 votes are needed to do it. But Cheney said that in terms of accountability for the former president’s role in the riot, the Senate trial “is a snapshot.”
“There is a massive criminal investigation going on, there will be a massive criminal investigation into everything that happened on January 6 and the days before,” Cheney said. “People will want to know exactly what the president was doing. They will want to know, for example, if the tweet he sent calling Vice President Pence a coward while the attack was in progress, if that tweet, by example, was a premeditated effort to provoke violence. “
“There are a lot of questions that need to be answered and there will be a lot of criminal investigations looking at all aspects of it and everyone involved, as it should be,” she said, adding: “We don’t have never seen that kind of thing … of an assault by a President of the United States against another branch of government, and it could never happen again. “
Cheney said if she was a senator she would weigh the evidence and arguments before coming to a conclusion, but said what is already known deserves to be charged.
“What we already know constitutes the biggest violation of his oath of office by any president in the history of the country,” she said. “And it’s not something we can just look past or pretend it’s not happening or try to move on.” We need to make sure that this does not happen again.
Senate Republicans continued to express doubts the Senate would condemn the former president on Sunday.
During an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senator Pat Toomey, R-Pa., Said that if he thought the trial was constitutional, a conviction was “highly unlikely” and Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., told CBS “Face the Nation” of the trial: “There is really no question of the outcome.”
Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Told ABC “This Week” that he believes Trump should not be sentenced on trial because “the Constitution does not provide for the impeachment trial of a former president.”
When asked if he thought the president should be held accountable for his conduct, Mr Wicker said: “If being held accountable means being impeached by the House and sentenced by the Senate, the answer is no . “
Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La., Said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he believes the House “did an incredibly poor job in building a deal ahead of their impeachment vote.”
Cheney said much of the resistance she had faced since the impeachment vote was the result of misinformation.
“They believe that [Black Lives Matter] and Antifa were behind what happened here on Capitol Hill, ”she said of state party leaders who voted to censor her. This is simply not the case. This is not true, and we are going to have a lot of work to do. We lied to people. “
“The extent to which President Trump, in the months leading up to January 6, spread the idea that the election had been stolen or that the election had been rigged was a lie, and people need to understand that,” he said she continued. “We have to make sure that as Republicans we are the party of truth and that we are honest about what really happened in 2020, so that we have a chance to win in 2022 and reclaim the House. Blanche in 2024. “
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