Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the No. 3 House Republican, announced on Tuesday she will vote to impeach President Donald Trump for his role in inciting the riots at the Capitol last week.
Cheney said in a statement that Trump “summoned” the mob that attacked the Capitol last week, “assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing.”
She asserted that Trump could have immediately intervened to stop his supporters, but he did not.
"There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," Cheney said in a statement announcing her decision, according to Politico.
Cheney, daughter of former US Vice President Dick Cheney, is the highest ranking Republican to publicly voice support for impeachment.
Earlier on Tuesday, New York Rep. John Katko became the first Republican to say he would vote to impeach Trump.
“It cannot be ignored that President Trump encouraged this insurrection – both on social media ahead of January 6th, and in his speech that day,” Katko said in a statement.
“By deliberately promoting baseless theories suggesting the election was somehow stolen, the president created a combustible environment of misinformation, disenfranchisement, and division. When this manifested in violent acts on January 6th, he refused to promptly and forcefully call it off, putting countless lives in danger,” he added.
House Democrats filed one article of impeachment against Trump on Monday, over his role in encouraging last Wednesday’s violence, though Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV) blocked Democrats from introducing a resolution via unanimous consent to call on Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump.