After his months-long smear campaign against the integrity of U.S. elections motivated a mob of extremists to attack the United States Capitol, the House of Representatives impeached outgoing President Donald Trump for a second time earlier this month.
Unlike Trump's impeachment for pressuring the leader of Ukraine to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden, the House's second impeachment passed with 10 Republicans voting in favorâthe most bipartisan impeachment in American history.
One of those Republican votes was Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), the House Republican Conference Chair, who said of Trump's incitement of the riot:
"There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution."
Cheney faced immediate backlash from Trump-loyal House Republicans like Congressmen Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Matt Rosendale (R-MT), who called for her removal from Republican House leadership.
She also faces backlash in her home state, with Wyoming's Carbon County Republican Party voting unanimously to censure her for her support of impeachment.
Now, comments from Wyoming GOP Chairman Frank Eathorne in a recent podcast interview with white nationalist former Trump administration official Steve Bannon suggest the Wyoming Republican Party is considering an even more extreme measure to deny the reality of Trump's election loss.
In the interview focused on Cheney's impeachment vote, Eathorne said:
"We are straight-talking, focused on the global scene, but we're also focused at home. Many of these Western states have the ability to be self-reliant, and we're keeping eyes on Texas too and their consideration of possible secession. Now, they have a different state constitution than we do as far as wording, but it is something that we're all paying attention to."
Eathorne seemed to be referring to comments by Texas GOP Chairman Allen West in favor of secession after the Supreme Court dismissed the state's baseless lawsuit against swing states Trump lost to President-elect Biden.
Bannon rebuked the calls for impeachment in the interview, and Eathorne later clarified that there'd be no further discussion of secession "unless the grass roots brings it up."
Nevertheless, the idea of secession was widely condemned across social media
Others mockingly urged the state's GOP to follow through with it.
Cheney has told her constituents that she doesn't intend to resign from her House leadership role over her impeachment vote.
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