GOP Panel Approves Resolution Censuring Cheney and Kinzinger

(Bloomberg) -- The Republican National Committee is expected to consider a resolution on Friday to censure U.S. Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, two of the most vocal GOP critics of Donald Trump, for serving on the House committee investigating the attack on the Capitol last year.

The RNC's resolutions committee unanimously approved censuring the two lawmakers on Thursday night, sending the measure to the full RNC for a vote on Friday at its winter meeting in Utah, according to Harmeet Dhillon, a national committeewoman from California and a co-sponsor of the resolution.

“Our brand as Republicans has to have some meaning, and these two Republicans, although labeled as such, are a complete disgrace to the party,” Dhillon said.

An earlier draft resolution called on Cheney and Kinzinger to be expelled from the party, but Dhillon said there were concerns that went too far. Some Republican leaders are also concerned the party should be focusing on Democrats and not other Republicans heading into midterm elections in which the GOP is favored to retake control of the House.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy so far has shown little inclination to remove Cheney from the chamber's GOP conference, as some members have advocated. House Republicans did oust Cheney as the No. 3 GOP leader last May and replaced her with Trump loyalist Elise Stefanik of New York.

Kinzinger announced last October that he wouldn't seek re-election to his Illinois seat, and Cheney faces a daunting primary challenge in August in Wyoming from a Trump-endorsed challenger, Harriet Hageman. Last year, the state party voted to censure her and called for her resignation.

Cheney and Kinzinger were among the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after a mob of his supporters assaulted the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. They're both serving on the House committee investigating the insurrection, which Trump has denounced as a “witch hunt.”

Cheney said GOP leaders “have made themselves willing hostages” to the former president, who has said he would consider pardoning those charged in the Capitol attack if he runs again in 2024 and wins. The former president has also said that he wanted then-Vice President Mike Pence, who presided over the counting of Electoral College votes in Congress on Jan. 6, to overturn the election.

“I'm a constitutional conservative and I do not recognize those in my party who have abandoned the Constitution to embrace Donald Trump,” Cheney said in statement. “History will be their judge. I will never stop fighting for our constitutional republic. No matter what.”

Maura Gillespie, a spokeswoman for Kinzinger said she thinks the RNC's time “would be better served by focusing on 2022 rather than an unprecedented and shortsighted effort to purge two lifelong Republicans for simply telling the truth and upholding their oaths of office.”