In an overwhelming voice vote by committee members gathered for the general session of their winter meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, the RNC rebuked Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. The resolution also states the RNC will “no longer support them as members of the Republican Party.
The two vocal GOP critics of former President Donald Trump were the highest profile of the 10 House Republicans to vote last year to impeach the then-President for inciting the deadly storming of the Capitol by right wing extremists in an attempt to disrupt Congressional certification of now President Biden’s 2020 election victory. Cheney and Kinzinger are the only two Republican members on the panel investigating the attack on the Capitol.
The RNC, in its resolution, argued that Cheney and Kinzinger are “participating in a Democratic led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”
To drive home their argument, RNC chair Ronna McDaniel reiterated in a statement that “Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger crossed a line. They chose to join [House Speaker] Nancy 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. That’s why Republican National Committee members and myself overwhelmingly support this resolution.”
But the resolution that passed the full RNC on Friday was watered down from its original version, which was introduced by David Bossie, a committee member from Maryland and a longtime Trump ally. The initial resolution called for ousting Cheney and Kinzinger from the House GOP conference.
“Republicans have to stand together and what has happened with the Jan. 6 investigation is that it has become a one-sided witch hunt, where they’re only going after Republicans,” Steve Stepanek, the New Hampshire GOP chair and a one of the several dozen co-sponsors of the resolution, told Fox News. “We’re sending a message that we as a party are not going to support these individuals and we feel they should be censured.”
Stepanek also noted that Cheney and Kinzinger weren’t appointed to the committee by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
But a move by the national party committee to call for the removal of Cheney and Kinzinger from the House GOP conference would have presented headaches for McCarthy. Cheney was ousted from her number-three position in leadership last spring, but McCarthy’s yet to act on calls by Trump loyalists in the House Republican conference to kick out both Cheney and Kinzinger, who decided against running for re-election this year.
Stepanek told Fox News that the RNC’s resolution was watered down because “we did not want to usurp the authority of the Republicans in the House…It’s up to Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans to decide if they want to take further steps.”
Both Cheney and Kinzinger criticized the move by the RNC on Thursday, after the resolution passed an initial committee vote.
“The leaders of the Republican Party have made themselves willing hostages to a man who admits he tried to overturn a presidential election and suggests he would pardon Jan. 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy,” Cheney charged.
And she emphasized that “I’m a constitutional conservative and I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump. History will be their judge. I will never stop fighting for our constitutional republic. No matter what.”
The resolution didn’t sit well with some of the party’s committee members.