‘The Things We Do For The Orange Jesus’: Liz Cheney Recalls GOP Rep. Lamenting Trump Pressure on Jan. 6
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) gave a barn burner of a speech on Monday to the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute in which she warned of the threat to American democracy and institutions posed by former President Donald Trump and his followers.
During the Q&A after her remarks, Cheney recalled one Republican House member lamenting the price of loyalty to Trump.
“I was in the Republican cloakroom,” Cheney began, recalling the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
“I was working on my remarks, I was supposed to speak that day and there were sheets of paper laid out on the desks. And I asked one of the staffers in the cloakroom, what are these sheets of paper?” Cheney began, adding:
Because members were coming in and signing them. And this person said to me, ‘Well, those are the objection sheets, because, you know, it’s only actually required that one House member object. But there were so many who wanted to show they were objecting that they’d set up these sign-up sheets in the cloakroom.’
“And as I was sitting there, a member came in and he signed his name on each one of the state’s sheets. And then he said under his breath, ‘The things we do for the Orange Jesus.’ And I thought, you know, you’re taking an act that is unconstitutional.”
Liz Cheney describes what was happening in the Republican Cloakroom on Jan. 6.
One member said under their breath:
“The things we do for the Orange Jesus.” pic.twitter.com/NvniqtFVCd
— The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) September 19, 2022
Cheney is promoting her proposal for overhauling the Electoral Count Act, which would make clear the role of the vice president in the electoral count process and hold governors accountable for submitting lawful election results to Congress.
“Excuse by excuse, we’re putting Donald Trump above the law. We are rendering indefensible conduct normal, legal and appropriate as though he were a king,” Cheney said during her remarks.
“And now Donald Trump has been suggesting, not even subtly, that any legal action against him could result in violence. Our former president is apparently now suggesting that if he is prosecuted, his supporters should stand up to our constitutional order and the rule of law, stand up and through whatever means are needed, prevent his prosecution, prevent the application of the law,” she continued, adding:
It is hard to see this as anything but a direct threat to our Constitution, to our republic, and a credible one at that. One can only wonder, is this where the Republican Party will go next?
The prosecution is inappropriate because MAGA will violently oppose it. All of us have an obligation to acknowledge what is happening. Those activities that I have just listed for you, those are the erosion of the rule of law and they are the undermining of our constitutional system
“Our constitutional system has been defended and handed down to us by every generation since 1789. It comes to us with a duty of inheritance. It doesn’t belong to us. It belongs to our children and our grandchildren. And we must not be the generation that allows it to unravel,” she concluded.
Watch the full remarks above
