Wyoming GOP chairman floats secession after Cheney votes to impeach Trump

A top Republican official in Wyoming floated the idea of seceding from the United States after a high-profile member of his party from the Cowboy State embraced the impeachment of President Trump.

Wyoming GOP Chairman Frank Eathorne suggested the idea to War Room Pandemic podcast host and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon in a weekend interview focused on the decision by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the third-ranked Republican in the House, to vote in favor of impeaching Trump on a charge of incitement of insurrection related to the deadly riot that took place at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

“We need to focus on the fundamentals that’s been stated in this broadcast, and that is what Wyoming is,” Eathorne stated. “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.”

Bannon, in response, said he was “absolutely, 1,000% against any even discussion of secession.”

Eathorne, who rebuked Cheney throughout the interview, said her office did not tell the state party ahead of her announcement that she intended to vote in favor of impeaching Trump a second time. He later told the Star Tribune that the idea of seceding was brought up “only [in] a brief conversation with the Texas GOP in earlier work with them,” and added, “won’t come up again unless the grass roots brings it up.”

“This is the kind of nonsense that’s coming to define the GOP, and it represents an existential threat to the party,” a Washington, D.C.-based Republican official told the Washington Examiner. “If we’re known as the side that embraces conspiracy theories, ignores the Constitution, and talks up secession, we’ll never win another contested election, and we’ll only have ourselves to blame because our leaders did not condemn this foolishness.”

Eathorne’s mention of Texas’s threat to secede is a reference to Texas GOP Chairman Allen West, who made a similar threat after the Supreme Court rejected a Texas challenge to President-elect Joe Biden’s wins in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

“This decision will have far reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic. Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution,” the statement read in part.

The Wyoming GOP released a statement excoriating Cheney after she, along with nine other Republicans, voted to impeach the president.

“The wind in Wyoming has been horrendous today—with gusts up to 65 miles per hour. That is nothing compared to the whirlwind created by Representative Cheney’s announcement that she would be voting to impeach President Trump, and her subsequent follow-through of doing just that,” the party wrote in part.

“There has not been a time during our tenure when we have seen this type of an outcry from our fellow Republicans, with the anger and frustration being palpable in the comments we have received,” the Wyoming GOP statement continued. “Our telephone has not stopped ringing, our email is filling up, and our website has seen more traffic than at any previous time. The consensus is clear that those who are reaching out to the Party vehemently disagree with Representative Cheney’s decision and actions.”

The Republican National Committee did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump, who is leaving office on Wednesday, now faces a Senate trial. A two-thirds vote, or 67 senators, is required to convict. Trump was first impeached by the Democratic-controlled House in December 2019 on two Ukraine-related charges but was acquitted by the GOP-led Senate.