WASHINGTON — House Republicans voted Wednesday evening to keep Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney in her House leadership role, rebuffing an attempt to remove her three weeks after she voted with Democrats to impeach former President Donald Trump.
The internal GOP vote was 145-61, with one member voting present, coming at the end of an emotional four-hour meeting, according to people who were in the room. Those who stood up to defend Cheney’s job as GOP conference chair and those who wanted to remove her spoke passionately about their positions, the people said.
Speaking in her own defense, Cheney, 54, didn’t apologize for her Jan. 13 vote to impeach Trump, saying it was an act of conscience that she stands by. She did argue, however, that she is a team player and should continue in her leadership role.
“It was a very resounding acknowledgment that we need to go forward together,” Cheney told reporters after the vote, in reference to Wednesday’s private GOP meeting.
Yet the fact that nearly a third of the conference voted against her underscores the deep division in the Republican Party between those who remain fiercely loyal to Trump and those who want to move past the former president and his false claims about the November election.
Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Louie Gohmert of Texas were among those who argued against Cheney, insisting that an elected leader of the party should not have voted to impeach a Republican president.
Several lawmakers said one of the moments that stood out the most was House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s defense of Cheney, calling for unity in the party.
The House impeached Trump on a single charge of inciting an insurrection after his supporters had stormed the U.S. Capitol in a deadly attack as Congress was about to certify the Electoral College victory of Joe Biden.
Cheney at the time fiercely defended her decision to vote against Trump. Trump “summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney, a daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, said in a Jan. 12 statement. “Everything that followed was his doing.” Cheney had opposed Trump’s first impeachment in late 2019.
The conflict was one of two festering disputes for House Republicans that came to a head on Wednesday.
They are grappling with how to respond to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose past comments on QAnon and various other conspiracy theories have been denounced by other Republicans. McCarthy earlier said he condemned her previous stances and social media posts but indicated he’d take no action to punish the Georgia Republican.
House Democrats earlier Wednesday moved to oust Greene from two committees and set up a vote of the full House Thursday to determine her fate.
