House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) reportedly made clear on Thursday that he opposes the petition that President Trump’s allies in the House Republican conference circulated the day before urging its third-ranking member to resign from her leadership position after she came out in favor of Trump’s impeachment.
In a statement first reported by the Washington Examiner on Thursday, an unnamed McCarthy aide said the House minority leader “does not support efforts to remove her as conference chair.”
McCarthy’s private opposition against ousting Cheney from her leadership position comes on the heels of the House Republicans’ petition to oust Cheney hours before she voted with nine others in her conference to impeach Trump.
In announcing her support for impeachment the day before the historic House vote to impeach Trump for the second time, Cheney decried the President for having “summoned” and “assembled” the mob that stormed the Capitol. The third-ranking House Republican argued that “there has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution.”
The next day, House Republicans launched their petition against Cheney, which called for a special GOP conference meeting and complained about its chair’s support for impeachment that they view has “been used multiple times by Democrats as justification” for the process.
“Cheney’s personal position on issues does not reflect that of the majority of the Republican Conference and has brought the Conference into disrepute and produced discord,” the petition said, before calling on Cheney to “immediately resign” from her position as the House GOP conference chair.
Responding to the House GOP petition later Wednesday, Cheney told Politico that she is “not going anywhere” as she repeated her rationale that supporting impeachment was “a vote of conscience.”
“It’s one where there are different views in our conference,” Cheney said, according to Politico. “But our nation is facing an unprecedented, since the civil war, constitutional crisis. That’s what we need to be focused on. That’s where our efforts and attention need to be.”
“Our telephone has not stopped ringing, our email is filling up, and our website has seen more traffic than at any previous time,” the Wyoming GOP said. “The consensus is clear that those who are reaching out to the Party vehemently disagree with Representative Cheney’s decision and actions.”
The Wyoming GOP said that it shared the critical comments it received with Cheney due to “overwhelming interest in this issue.”
“We as a Party respect our elected officials and assume that they will respect and represent their constituents,” the Wyoming GOP said. “We are receiving the message loud and clear that what happened yesterday is a true travesty for Wyoming and the country.”
