Fellow GOP Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger added his support Tuesday for House Republican Conference Chair and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney as she continues to criticize members of her party that believe the 2020 presidential election was tainted.
“The 2020 presidential election was not stolen,” Cheney said in a Twitter post Monday. “Anyone who claims it was, is spreading the big lie, turning their back on the rule of law, and poisoning our democratic system.”
Kinzinger agreed with Cheney and a statement put out by her Communications Director Jeremy Adler. “One-hundred percent. This is the issue.”
“This is about whether the Republican Party is going to perpetuate lies about the 2020 election and attempt to whitewash what happened on January 6, Liz will not do that,” Adler’s post said. “That is the issue.”
Other Republicans, including Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, a long-time opponent and critic of former President Donald Trump, has also thrown his support behind Cheney.
In a statement from his Save America PAC on Monday, Trump doubled down.
“The fraudulent presidential election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as the big lie,” his brief statement said.
Several hundred Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. on January 6 as Congress officially counted ballots from the Electoral College and declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner of the race.
Five people died in the riot including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick and Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt.
The controversy regarding the election caused a rift within the Republican Party between those that support the former president and those who wish to move beyond him.
Cheney, the third ranking member of the GOP in the U.S. House of Representatives, was one of 10 Republicans to vote to impeach Trump a second time on Jan. 13, 2021 for his role inciting the riot.
Trump was acquitted a second time in the U.S. Senate.
Cheney, the daughter of former Bush-era Vice President Dick Cheney, was censured in February by her party in her home state of Wyoming, which voted 70 percent for Trump in the election, CBS News reported at the time.
The vote to censure was 56-8.
Despite the heat from her own party, Cheney continues to be a vocal opponent of her fellow members that continue to support Trump and that are working on a possible run for him in 2024.
She is also facing a primary challenge from Wyoming State Sen. Anthony Bouchard, who called her “out of touch” with Wyoming given Trump’s popularity there.
Source: Newmax
