Liz Cheney claims pro-Trump GOP lawmaker mocked him as ‘orange Jesus’ while opposing 2020 results

Outgoing Wyoming GOP Representative Liz Cheney claimed Monday night that a Republican colleague of hers called Donald Trump “orange Jesus” even as he signed a form formally objecting to the ex-president’s election loss.

The ousted conservative Trump critic recalled that it happened in the GOP’s wardrobe hours before the former president’s supporters stormed the US Capitol to prevent lawmakers from certifying his defeat.

“I was working on my comments, I was due to speak that day and there were sheets of paper on the desks. And I asked one of the employees in the cloakroom, “What are those sheets of paper?” Because members came in and signed them,” Cheney said.

The staffer told her they were appeals to anyone who wanted to sign up to oppose President Joe Biden’s victory. Only one objection is needed, but Cheney said, “There were so many who wanted to show that they objected to putting these entry forms in the cloakroom.”

“While I was sitting there, a member came in and put his signature on each of the gazettes. And then he said softly, “The things we do for the Orange Jesus.” And I thought, you know, you’re committing an act that’s unconstitutional,” Cheney said.

The conservative lawmaker was banned from her own party for her criticism of Trump after last year’s U.S. Capitol riots and her work to investigate him through the Jan. 6 commission.

She lost her primary race in August to a Trump-backed challenger.

Cheney attacked her soon-to-be ex-colleagues Monday night, accusing them of treating the former president “as if he were a king” and portraying their enduring loyalty as a threat to democracy.

“The elected leaders of the Republican Party are downplaying the violence of January 6 and are demanding that everyone else do the same. This has become a litmus test,” she said in a shot at her former allies’ support for her main opponent.

“It’s as if the hundreds of serious injuries suffered by the Capitol cops defending our Capitol that day were insignificant.”

She added that “Mike Pence was the president most of the day.”

Cheney also denounced Trump and his supporters’ verbal attacks on federal law enforcement officers in the wake of the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, where agents allegedly retrieved highly classified documents not intended to leave a secure facility.

As with the Capitol riots, Cheney was one of the few Republicans to openly criticize Trump for his handling of classified documents — which the Justice Department says may violate the Espionage Act and other criminal statutes.

She said elected Republicans are treating the former president ‘like he is a king’

‘[T]protecting Donald Trump, elected leaders of my party, are now willing to convict FBI agents, Justice Department officials and pretend to be top secret… a-Lago or in an unsecured location, wherever, somehow wasn’t a problem,” Cheney said.

“They are trying to excuse this behaviour. They’re trying to say it was normal, it was a storage problem,” she continued.

And apparently the Justice Department has evidence that Donald Trump lied about having these documents, and he lied repeatedly. That has now become excusable, judging by the actions of elected officials in my party.’

She warned that Trump’s unreserved embrace by GOP lawmakers could gradually “erodize the rule of law.”

“To this day, we have to face the consequences of a president who has given up his oath,” Cheney insisted.

And we must be clear, in this time of trial, in this time of challenge, that when men and women in positions of public trust defend the indefensible and make excuses for Donald Trump, they jeopardize the principles of our democratic republic. ‘

She added: “Any individual compromise to defend one man’s behavior changes that republic incrementally.”