Republican Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger were reprimanded by the national party organization RNC on Friday for wanting to investigate the background to the storming of the Capitol in January 2021. At the same time, Mike Pence distanced himself from former President Donald Trump.
Were reprimanded by party colleagues: Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger at a Commission of Inquiry meeting dated January 6, 2021. Washington, October 19, 2021.
The Republican Party has resorted to extreme language to neutralize internal critics of President Donald Trump. In an adopted on Friday resolution The delegates to the Republican National Committee described the events of January 6, 2021 as a “legitimate political statement” and the rioters who did not want to accept the result of the 2020 presidential election as “ordinary” citizens.
And because the two Republican MPs Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have a different opinion and, contrary to the wishes of the parliamentary group leadership in the House of Representatives, have taken a seat on the commission of inquiry, they have now been officially reprimanded. Cheney and Kinzinger pretend to be members of the party, but their behavior in Washington will harm the Republicans in the 2022 election year – and serve the political opponent as legitimacy for the allegedly unfair campaign against the ex-president.
No debate, no secret ballot
There was no opposition to the resolution at the Republican convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. The complaint was passed without discussion. Journalists present said they only heard a few “no” votes during the oral vote. Party leader Ronna McDaniel, who owes her post to the ex-president, also campaigned for the reprimand against Cheney and Kinzinger. in one Interview with the Washington Post She had previously accused MPs of not standing up for the interests of “hard-working Republicans”. Instead, Cheney and Kinzinger would join a Democrat witch hunt against Trump supporters.
The truth is that the January 6 demonstration began peacefully on the White House grounds. Thousands of Trump supporters, however, marched to the Capitol on Epiphany afternoon and illegally gained entry into the Houses of Parliament — where the Senate and House of Representatives, chaired by then-Vice President Mike Pence, were busy formalizing Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory. In the past 12 months, nearly 750 people have been charged in connection with the storming of the Capitol. According to a summary by George Washington University, around 200 defendants have already pleaded guilty in federal court.
However, the commission of inquiry, chaired by Democrat Bennie Thompson, is also interested in Trump’s machinations in the days and weeks after his election defeat. The panel wants to find out whether the president-elect gave orders to overturn the election results in politically contested states – and whether these plans only failed due to the resistance of some upright employees of his government. On Friday, Pence said during an address to the Federal Society of Lawyers in Florida: “President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election. The Presidency belongs to the American people and only to the American people.”
Party leader McDaniel, incidentally the niece of Senator Mitt Romney, who is critical of Trump, defended herself on Twitter against the alleged misinterpretation of the resolution. She claimed that the phrase “legitimate political statement” did not refer to the violence at the Capitol, although the written text does not indicate this.
Cheney and Kinzinger chose to join Pelosi in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens who engaged in legitimate political discourse that had nothing to do with violence at the Capitol.
The NYT needs to correct this story now, or again expose themselves as political hacks.
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) February 4, 2022
Cheney wants to be re-elected in November
The two MPs who were reprimanded were initially unimpressed by the reproach. Kinzinger, who does not want to stand for re-election again in November, said on the short message service Twitter: “I do not regret my decision to keep my oath of office and to defend the constitution.” Cheney, the elder daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, released a clip that gave a glimpse of one of the brutal battles Trump supporters fought with law enforcement on Jan. 6. “This is not ‘legitimate political discourse’,” she wrote.
This was January 6th.
This is not “legitimate political discourse.” pic.twitter.com/lKgbVyVcJr— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) February 4, 2022
For Cheney, 55, the RNC complaint has more than just symbolic consequences. She wants to be re-elected and first has to face a primary in the conservative state Wyoming in August; because she is now only a sham Republican in the eyes of the national party organization, the RNC can support her opponent financially. And Harriet Hageman, the name of Cheney’s challenger supported by Trump, urgently needs money. In the last quarter of 2021, she raised just $443,000 in campaign donations; Cheney, in turn, took in more than $2 million.