WASHINGTON: Liz Cheney’s dogged pursuit of Donald Trump over last year’s riot at the US Capitol may have ended her career in Congress but the rebel Republican says her work is "far from over" as she breaks ranks with her party in the fight for US democracy.
The 56-year-old congresswoman became the first Cheney to taste political defeat in deeply-conservative Wyoming as she relinquished her right to defend her US House seat in November’s midterms to Harriet Hageman, a Trump-endorsed election conspiracy theorist.
"I want to say first of all, a special thanks to every member of Team Cheney who is here in the audience, and to tell you our work is far from over," Cheney said in a speech conceding defeat in her primary contest.
A daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney -- and once seen as the tax-cutting, gun-loving, God-fearing, small-government apotheosis of American conservatism -- Liz Cheney became a pariah in her own party.
Her refusal to accept Trump’s false claims of a stolen 2020 election put her on a collision course with modern Republicans, who booted her out of the leadership and have disowned her at home in the "Cowboy State."
Cheney was one of just 10 Republicans in the House to vote to impeach the former president for inciting the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Yet Cheney hasn’t ruled out the possibility of a tilt at the presidency in 2024, either by taking on Trump in the race for the Republican nomination or by running as an independent.
"I haven’t made a decision about that yet. I’m obviously very focused on my reelection. I’m very focused on the January 6 committee. I’m very focused on my obligations to do the job that I have now," she said during an interview with ABC News.
In her concession speech outside the town of Jackson, she sounded like someone looking beyond Wyoming to a bigger stage. "I have said since January 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office - and I mean it," she said.
Despite being defeated by Joe Biden, Trump retains an iron grip on the Republican Party, which in February adopted as part of its official policy platform the falsehood that the mayhem at the Capitol constituted "legitimate political discourse."
"They say January 6 won’t be much of a voting issue in 2022. Perhaps," tweeted conservative US political commentator Bill Kristol ahead of Tuesday’s primary. "But it was in fact a defining moment for the country, and whether we take it seriously or not, today remains a defining question for us as a country. Liz Cheney takes it seriously. We all should."
Only one other Republican, Adam Kinzinger, joined Cheney’s rebellion -- but the young Illinois congressman has chosen to retire rather than fight for reelection. Both have been tarred as "RINOs" -- "Republicans in name only" -- by colleagues with far less conservative voting records.
Other Republican lawmakers have tried to walk a fine line between condemning Trump’s role in the bid to overthrow the 2020 election -- including the storming of the Capitol -- and staying in his good graces.
"The president of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack," she said as she explained why Trump deserved blame for the insurrection -- reprising word-for-word a withering assessment she first deployed during Trump’s second impeachment.
Cheney, the elder of Dick Cheney’s two daughters, comes from a family that is the equivalent of political royalty in staunchly conservative Wyoming. From 1979 to 1989, her now 81-year-old father held the House seat that she now occupies.
Dick Cheney resigned from Congress to become defence secretary under president George H W Bush and went on to serve for eight years as vice president under president George W Bush. After graduating from University of Chicago law school, Liz Cheney worked for the International Finance Corporation and served in various State Department posts.