J. Scott Applewhite/AP
- Rep. Liz Cheney said Donald Trump is on a "crusade to undermine our democracy."
- The Wyoming Republican said the former president "risks inciting further violence."
- "Those who refuse to accept the rulings of our courts are at war with the Constitution," she said.
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Following a line of fellow Republican speakers condemning "cancel culture," Rep. Liz Cheney stood on the floor of Congress Tuesday to condemn those in her party who refuse to condemn a former president's effort to steal the 2020 election and his ongoing "crusade to undermine our democracy."
Cheney, Wyoming's sole member of the House of Representatives, is currently the chair of the GOP conference. But her harsh words for Donald Trump, the de facto leader of her party, and refusal to endorse his claims about voter fraud have made her position tenuous.
On Wednesday, her colleagues are voting on whether to replace her with another lawmaker, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, a Trump loyalist. But she is not going down quietly.
"Today we face a threat America has never seen before: a former president, who provoked a violent attack on this Capitol, in an effort to steal the election, has resumed his aggressive effort to convince Americans that the election was stolen from him," Cheney said. "He risks inciting further violence."
Cheney reminded her fellow Republicans dozens of courts rejected the former president's claims of mass voter fraud, as did his own Department of Justice. "I am a conservative Republican," she said, "and the most conservative of conservative principles is reverence for the rule of law."
Those who decline to accept that the election is over - and refuse to state that President Joe Biden's victory was legitimate - "are at war with the Constitution," Cheney added.
A majority of Republican voters now believe the former president's false claims that the election he objectively lost was stolen from him, according to recent polling.
"Remaining silent, and ignoring the lie, emboldens the liar," Cheney said. "I will not participate in that. I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president's crusade to undermine our democracy."
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