Republican lawmakers are calling on Representative Liz Cheney, the number three House Republican, to resign from her role as Republican Conference Chair after she revealed she would vote to impeach President Trump.
Three GOP lawmakers — Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio, Matt Rosendale of Montana, and Andy Biggs of Arizona — have all called on Cheney to step down.
Jordan, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he’s pressing House Republicans to oust her from her leadership role.
“The conference ought to vote on that,” Jordan said on Wednesday as the House met to vote on a single article of impeachment. “I think she’s wrong.”
Meanwhile, Rosendale said Tuesday that Cheney was “weakening” Republicans for “personal gain.”
The Wyoming Republican said Trump bore responsibility for his group of supporters’ decision to storm the U.S. Capitol last week, leaving five people dead.
Biggs is circulating a petition, obtained by Punchbowl News, to call for a meeting to oust Cheney. If the petition receives 50 or more votes, it will be automatically sent to the broader conference for a vote.
Cheney, the highest-ranking Republican to call for Trump’s removal from office, said Tuesday that there has “never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
The House is expected to pass a single article of impeachment on Wednesday accusing Trump of “incitement of insurrection.”
The four-page impeachment resolution includes Trump’s false comments about his election defeat to President-elect Joe Biden, his push to have state officials in Georgia “find” him additional votes and his “Save America” rally that took place Wednesday at the White House just before the Capitol riots, during which he urged his supporters to “fight like hell.”
The bill authored by Representatives David Cicilline (D., R.I.), Ted Lieu (D., Calif.), Jamie Raskin (D., Md.), and Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.), said Trump threatened “the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power” and “betrayed” trust.
While no House Republicans voted to impeach Trump in 2019, at least four other GOP House members have pledged to support impeachment this time around: John Katko (N.Y.), Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), Fred Upton (Mich.) and Jaime Herrera Beutler (Wash.)
Representative Tom Cole (R., Okla.), who does not plan to vote in favor of impeachment, has come out in support of Cheney, saying he “respects” her decision and that her statement was “honorable” and “brave.”
“I have every confidence in Liz Cheney’s ability to do any job,” Cole said. “And you can’t punish somebody when they say it is a vote of conscience and they act on their own conscience.”