The Republican National Committee (RNC) will reportedly move forward with a resolution on Friday to censure Reps. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) for their conduct on the January 6 committee.
The resolution comes after clearing an RNC committee vote on Thursday and will likely “be approved by the RNC’s full body at its winter meeting on Friday,” according to Politico. Though the resolution will rebuke both lawmakers for their participation on the January 6 committee, it stopped short of expelling them from the Republican House conference. Some Republicans felt the language in the original resolution, led by Trump ally David Bossie, was too inflammatory.
“Several RNC members said they feared it would create a political headache for both the House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, and the RNC chair, Ronna McDaniel,” noted Politico. “McDaniel said in November that Cheney ‘obviously’ is ‘still a Republican.’”
Harmeet Dhillon, national committeeperson from California and supporter of the resolution, said the censure is not a punishment for being anti-Trump.
“This is not about them being anti-Trump,” said Harmeet Dhillon. “There are plenty of other people in the party who are anti-Trump whose names don’t appear in the resolution. These two took specific action to defy party leadership.”
In a statement on Thursday, Cheney said that the censure shows that Republican leaders have beholden themselves to former President Donald Trump:
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.
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.
Kinzinger will be retiring from Congress at the end of his current term, while Cheney faces a tough primary challenge in the state of Wyoming, where the state party recently voted that it no longer recognizes her as a Republican. As Breitbart News reported in January, a Wyoming straw poll has Cheney losing to the Trump-backed Harriet Hageman.
“A secret ballot straw poll of Republican party activists gave Hageman 59 votes, a 53 vote lead against Cheney, according to the Casper Star-Tribune. Cheney garnered only six votes, along with state Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R-Cheyenne), who received two votes, and Denton Knapp, who received one vote,” said the report.
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