Cheney says she won’t resign after Wyoming censure

Rep. Liz Cheney reiterated Sunday morning that she has no plans to resign from Congress — even after Republicans in her home state of Wyoming voted to censure her for voting to impeach Donald Trump.

“I’m not" going to step down, Cheney told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “I think people all across Wyoming understand and recognize that our most important duty is to the Constitution. And as I’ve explained — and will continue to explain — to supporters all across the state and voters all across the state, the oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment.”

The Wyoming Republican Party voted overwhelmingly Saturday to censure the Republican, with just eight of the 74 members of the Wyoming central committee opposing the move. Cheney did not personally attend the meeting. In their letter, Wyoming Republicans said that Cheney “violated the trust of her voters, failed to faithfully represent a very large majority of motivated Wyoming voters and neglected her duty to represent the party.”

But Cheney argued on "Fox News Sunday" that people should consider the context of the letter, which falsely claims that BLM and Antifa supporters instigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

“I think you have to read the language of the censure, partly,” Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House, added. “I think, you know, that people in the party are mistaken. They believe that BLM and Antifa were behind what happened here at the Capitol. It’s just simply not the case. It’s not true. And we’re going to have a lot of work we have to do. People have been lied to.”

Cheney also faced a challenge to her leadership in the House last week, with the House Republican Conference voting on whether she should be ousted as chair of the conference. Ultimately, GOP lawmakers voted 145 to 61 to allow Cheney to retain her post.

With the Senate impeachment trial kicking off this week, Cheney urged her fellow lawmakers to pay close attention to the testimony and evidence.

“If I were in the Senate, I would listen to the testimony," she said. "I would listen to the evidence. If you’re a senator, you have a responsibility to be a juror and I think that’s very important, but I obviously believe — and did then — that what we already know is enough for his impeachment. What we already know does constitute the greatest violation of his oath of office by any president in the history of this country.

“This is not something that we can simply look past or pretend didn’t happen or try to move on,” Cheney said. “We’ve got to make sure this never happens again.”

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) offered some carefully phrased praise of Cheney on CNN's "Inside Politics."

"I’m afraid to say anything good about Ms. Cheney, I might get her in trouble," Dingell said, "but she voted her conscience and we’re all going to have to find some ways to put all of this bickering aside because the American people are counting on us to get some things done."

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Pelosi: House has ‘arrows in our quiver’ to delay SCOTUS nomination

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday morning that the House has plenty of options available to delay the Senate from acting on President Donald Trump’s nominees for the Supreme Court.

“Well, we have our options,” she said on ABC’s “This Week,” replying to host George Stephanopoulos’ question about whether the House would consider launching impeachment proceedings to block the confirmation of a Trump Supreme Court nomination.

“We have arrows in our quiver that I’m not about to discuss right now, but the fact is we have a big challenge in our country. The president has threatened to not even accept the results of the election with statements that he and his henchmen have made.”

Less than a day after the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Trump assured voters that his administration would be moving ahead with nominating a new justice before the election.

“We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices,” Trump tweeted Saturday morning. “We have this obligation, without delay!”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell supported that sentiment, promising that Trump’s nominee would “receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”

The House plays no part in the confirmation process but could, in theory, take other actions that clog up the Senate calendar.

“We have a responsibility,” Pelosi added. “We’ve taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. We have a responsibility to meet the needs of the American people. When we weigh the equities of protecting our democracy, that requires us to use every arrow in our quiver.”

Sen. Amy Klobuchar made similar remarks on NBC’s "Meet the Press."

"As Sen. [Chuck] Schumer says, there’s a lot of things we can try to do," the Minnesota Democrat said. "But in the end, I’m not going to concede any of that. My colleagues — and I do have facts on my side here — you have a number of them that haven’t said what they’re going to do. You have a number of them that have already said that the next president should make a decision."

"You have the precedent of the only time a justice died this close to an election. Abraham Lincoln was president and he made the decision to wait until after the election. And you have the fact that people are voting right now. And I think that creates pressure on my colleagues, honestly — and that’s what a democracy is about.”

Ultimately, Pelosi said the best tool in their arsenal is to “just win the election” and encouraged everyone to vote.

“The fact is this administration has been a total failure in protecting the health and well-being of the American people, and it has had an impact on our economy,” she said. “The lives, the livelihood and the life of our democracy are threatened by the administration. So again, when people say, ‘What can I do?’ You can vote. You can get out the vote and you can do so as soon as possible.”

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