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Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) published a scathing opinion piece in the Washington Post Wednesday afternoon arguing that the Republican Party must either accept the results of the 2020 election and fully investigate the January 6 insurrection—or crumble.
House Republicans are working to oust Cheney from party leadership because she refuses to accept the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Trump. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says he’s concerned “about her ability to carry out the job as conference chair.” The party’s proposed replacement as House Republican Conference chair is Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), an unblinking Trump ally.
“The Republican Party is at a turning point, and Republicans must decide whether we are going to choose truth and fidelity to the Constitution,” Cheney wrote in the Post. “The question before us now is whether we will join Trump’s crusade to delegitimize and undo the legal outcome of the 2020 election, with all the consequences that might have.”
Cheney argued that Republicans should support the Justice Department’s investigations into the events of January 6, encourage the formation of a bipartisan panel with subpoena power to convey facts about the insurrection to the public, and hold fast to “genuinely conservative principles” while avoiding “the dangerous and anti-democratic cult of personality.”
Still, Cheney’s estrangement from the rest of the Republican Party in no way makes her a progressive hero. After she repudiated Trump’s lies, she blasted “Black Lives Matter and antifa violence,” calling destruction of property during protests against police violence “illegal and reprehensible.”
One thing is certain: The GOP won’t succeed with its agenda “if Republicans choose to abandon the rule of law and join Trump’s crusade to undermine the foundation of our democracy and reverse the legal outcome of the last election.”
Read Cheney’s entire article here.
