Liz Cheney, the highest-ranking woman in the Republican Party, will vote to impeach Donald Trump, saying the deadly insurrection at the Capitol wouldn’t have happened without him.
Cheney, who is the No.3 House Republican and a representative for Wyoming, released a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, describing Donald Trump’s incitement of the attack as a great betrayal.
“The President of the US summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney said.
“Everything that followed was his doing.”
With only days remaining in his time in office, the US Congress is poised to start impeachment proceedings on Wednesday (US time). If the House of Representatives votes to charge Trump, he will become the first president to be impeached twice.
“None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not,” Cheney said.
“There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution. I will vote to impeach the President.”
Currently, there are four other House Republicans, John Katko, Adam Kinzinger, Fred Upton and Jaime Herrera Beutler, who have said they will vote to impeach Trump.
Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has told associates he believes Trump committed impeachable offenses and is pleased the Democrats are moving to impeach him. According to the Times, McConnell believes it will be easier to purge Trump from the Republican Party if he has been impeached for the second time.
Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney, has previously opposed Trump’s efforts to overturn and invalidate the results of the election. At the time, it was reported Trump said: “The Liz Cheneys of the world. We have to get rid of them.”