Bret Baier questions Liz Cheney’s spread of disputed ‘Russian bounties’ story

Baier grilled Cheney over her spread of the now disputed claim that Russia was putting bounties on US troops in the middle east. This coming on top of other scrutiny Cheney has been facing this month. Something that includes reports that Cheney was a ringleader for a Washington Post op-ed that warned against using the US military to overturn the 2020 election.

Baier’s questioning of Cheney fell on these lines of thought. When she was supposed to be unifying the Republican party during a tumultuous time, why did Cheney entertain in stirring further confusion?

In response to Cheney “amplifying anonymous sources” regarding the Russian bounty rumor, Baier wanted to know if she regretted taking part in amplifying it.

The short answer is no. Cheney asserts if one were to “look at the details” of the story, the intelligence community presented it as more on-the-fence from the onset. “I think if you go back and look at what I said, every single thing I said, I said ‘if those stories are true? We need to know why the President and the Vice-President were not briefed on them.’ And made very clear that we were concerned. I remain concerned about the role of the Russian government in Afghanistan.”

At the time, Liz Cheney put out statements like these.

Baier interjected to question how Cheney’s statements at the time reflected on her as GOP conference chair. The host said that many of Cheney’s colleagues in Washington saw that as a moment where she seemed to become more anti-Trump for her own sake, over the will of the party itself.

In response Liz Cheney made it a semantics argument and reiterated what she stated already.

On Wednesday the House GOP voted Cheney out of her leadership as a chair for the House Republicans. Liz’s role beforehand was to really be the unifier for the party’s messaging, and the consensus was that she wasn’t meeting what was expected of her.

However a divide in the Republican party was formed after the events of January 6th. As some Republican members of both the House and Senate had opposed certification of the 2020 election results amid widespread scrutiny over their validity. Unfortunately the Capitol riots happened that same day and further complicated debate over the issue.

In the aftermath of that, Trump allies like Matt Gaetz started an opposition campaign to Cheney’s role as she chose to impeach former President Trump over incitement charges.