Formerly Supporting Impeachment, Republican Liz Cheney Considers Running For US President To 'Trip' Donald Trump

Liz Cheney. (Twitter/@RepLizCheney)

JAKARTA - Republican US congressman Liz Cheney has vowed to do everything she can to keep Donald Trump away from the White House.

That includes deciding in the coming months whether to run for president himself, after he lost to Trump-backed main challenger Harriet Hageman in Wyoming on Tuesday.

Cheney's defeat to Hageman marked a significant victory for the former president in his campaign to oust Republican politicians who supported his impeachment, after mobs of his supporters stormed the Capitol Building last year.

In acknowledging the rivalry, Cheney, a fierce critic of Trump who has played a key role in the Congressional investigation into the January 6 attacks on the Capitol, said he was unwilling to "follow President Trump's lies about the 2020 election".

"That would require me to allow his continued efforts, to expose our democratic system and attack the foundations of our republic. That is a path I cannot and will not take," Cheney told his supporters.

Cheney told NBC's 'Today' show on Wednesday he "will do whatever it takes to keep Donald Trump out of the (White House) Oval Office", that he is considering running for president.

"This is something I'm thinking about, and I'll be making a decision in the coming months," he told 'Today' when asked about the presidential nomination, adding that he had a lot of work to do on the January 6 Committee investigating the Capitol Hill, Washington attacks. DC

"I believe that Donald Trump continues to pose an enormous threat and risk to our republic. And I think defeating him will require a broad united front of Republicans, Democrats and independents. And that's what I want to be a part of," Cheney said.

With 99 percent of the votes expected to be counted in Wyoming, Hageman led the Republican candidate with 66.3 percent of the vote, followed by Cheney with 28.9 percent, according to Edison Research, an election monitoring firm.

Cheney's defeat is the latest sign of Trump's enduring influence over the Republican Party.

Trump, who has signaled that he will run for president in 2024, has made ending Cheney's congressional career a priority among the 10 Republican members of the House of Representatives he has targeted after supporting his impeachment in 2021.

Cheney, daughter of former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, has used her position on the Jan. 6 Committee investigating the circumstances surrounding the Capitol riots to keep a close eye on Trump's actions that day and his false claims that he won the 2020 election.

Republican leaders are expected to dissolve the January 6 investigation, if they win control of the House by November. Representatives in Congress only take up their seats in January.

Cheney, who sits in the US House of Representatives, voted to impeach Trump on charges of inciting the Capitol riots. Of the 10 Republicans who support impeachment, it is likely only one, Washington's Dan Newhouse, will be in Congress after the November election.