House Republicans voted on Wednesday to oust anti-Trump conservative Liz Cheney from her leadership role, confirming that the party is casting its lot with the former U.S. President.
Eighteen months before crucial midterms and three years before the next presidential race, the Republican Party punished one of its own for refusing to embrace Donald Trump’s false claim that Democrats stole the 2020 election.
Ms. Cheney, a Wyoming conservative and the daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney, was removed from her role as the number three House Republican in a closed-door vote by the party’s conference.
After the vote Ms. Cheney told mediapersons: “I will do everything I can to ensure that the former President never again gets anywhere near the oval office.” “We must go forward based on truth. We cannot both embrace the big lie and embrace the Constitution,” she added.
Republicans argue it’s about unity, and that Ms. Cheney hammering on about Mr. Trump and what she calls his “dangerous and anti-democratic cult of personality” has done nothing to bring a fractured party together following a contentious election that left them in the political hinterland.
