House GOP Votes to Keep Liz Cheney as Chair, Not Punish Marjorie Taylor Greene

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) survived an attempt to remove her from a key GOP House leadership position for voting to impeach former President Donald Trump, while Republican leadership refused to take action against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Wednesday.

House Republicans voted 145-61 against removing Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference during a secret ballot vote on Wednesday night. Democrats plan to force a Thursday vote to strip House committee assignments from Greene, who has been heavily criticized for resurfaced social media activities in support of far-right extremism, despite GOP leadership failing act on the matter themselves.

Cheney holds the third highest ranking GOP leadership position in the House and was the most prominent of 10 Republicans who joined with Democrats in voting to impeach Trump over his alleged incitement of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Trump is the only president in U.S. history to be impeached twice and will be facing an unprecedented second impeachment trial in the Senate starting next week.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) is pictured walking inside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on February 3, 2021. Tasos Katopodis/Getty

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has continued to defend for her vote to impeach Trump despite substantial outcry from loyalists of the former president. During a closed-door GOP meeting on Wednesday, she told colleagues “I won’t apologize for the vote,” according to an Associated Press report citing a person familiar with the session who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Greene was heavily associated with pro-Trump conspiracy theories like QAnon and Pizzagate prior to being elected to Congress last November. She has been under mounting pressure in recent days and weeks due to reporting on Facebook activities that appear to reveal her past support for extremist positions like advocating the murder of prominent Democrats including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

Newsweek reached out to the office of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for comment.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.