Representative Liz Cheney, the House’s third Republican, said on Tuesday she would vote for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, as at least three Republican Party lawmakers will move to accuse their own party’s president of crimes and misdemeanors.
She is the highest-ranking Republican calling for the impeachment of the president in the wake of Wednesday’s deadly Capitol riot, which Trump helped incite with lies and incendiary rhetoric.
Representative John Katko, RN.Y., said earlier that he would support impeachment after the president incited a crowd that attacked the Capitol last week, while Congress counted the victory of President-elect Joe Biden. Congressman Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Later joined Cheney and Katko. The riot left five people, including a Capitol police officer, dead.
In a statement, Cheney said that Trump “summoned this crowd, assembled the crowd and lit the flame for this attack.”
“Everything that followed was his work. None of this would have happened without the president,” said the president of the Republican conference. “The president could have intervened immediately and forcefully to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the constitution.”
Republican House Speaker Liz Cheney speaks at a Capitol conference in Washington, May 8, 2019.
Aaron P. Bernstein | Reuters
The House plans to vote on Wednesday if it will accuse Trump of crimes and misdemeanors. Democrats said they have enough votes to impeach the president for an unprecedented second time.
As soon as the House impeaches Trump, the Senate will decide whether to condemn him. The council may not have time to vote to remove him from office before Biden takes office, a week after Wednesday.
Still, the Senate conviction would prevent Trump from becoming president again.
House Republicans revealed their positions while the New York Times reported that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Told associates that he thinks Trump has committed impugnable acts. The newspaper did not detail whether McConnell would vote to condemn the president if the House sent impeachment articles to the Senate, or if he would urge Republicans to vote the same way.
More Republicans could join Cheney, Katko and Kinzinger in supporting the effort. No House Republicans voted to impeach Trump in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, breaks with House minority leader Kevin McCarthy. The California Republican opposed Trump’s impeachment. He and minority leader Steve Scalise, R-La., Both objected to counting Biden’s certified electoral victories in Arizona and Pennsylvania after the attack on the Capitol.
Cheney is the daughter of former Vice President and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. He joined nine other living Pentagon chiefs earlier this month in warning against the military’s involvement in disputes over election results. The Washington Post opinion piece came three days before the Capitol attack.
Trump said earlier that pressure from Democrats to challenge him is dangerous and could trigger further violence. Some of its Republican allies have argued that the effort would prevent attempts to reduce tensions in the country.
Proponents of impeachment said Congress should not proceed until it blames Trump for his supporters’ attempt to halt the peaceful transfer of power.
The impeachment article that Democratic leaders seem to support, entitled “Incitement to Insurrection”, accuses Trump of committing serious crimes and misdemeanors by encouraging an attack on a co-equal branch of government. He says the president, by lying to his supporters about the election results for two months and then encouraging them to fight the result shortly before the Capitol invasion, helped to stimulate the turmoil.
This story is developing. Please check again for updates.
Sign up for CNBC on YouTube.