(Radio Iowa) – A former Republican leader in the U-S House who’s now a leading critic of former President Donald Trump spoke to a crowd at Drake University’s last (Wednesday) night. Liz Cheney says the U-S Supreme Court should reject Trump’s claims that as president he had legal immunity and let him stand trial on federal election conspiracy charges.  “It cannot be the case that a president of the United States can attempt to overturn an election and seize power and that our justice system is incapable of holding a trial, of holding him to account before the next election,” Cheney said.

In 2021, Cheney was the third ranking Republican in the U-S House when she voted to impeach Trump and the following year she lost her bid for reelection to a fellow Republican. Cheney has said she’ll travel the country this year, especially in swing states, to campaign against Trump. “I certainly have policy disagreements with the Biden Administration. I know the nation can survive bad policy. We can’t survive a president who is willing to torch the Constitution,” Cheney said, to cheers.

Cheney told the crowd in Des Moines that defeating Trump in 2024 isn’t the end goal, however. “It’s going to be necessary for all of us to decide we’re not going to just be bystanders,” Cheney says. “I can talk about what I’m going to do, but I think it’s much more important to talk about what we all have to do.”

Iowa G-O-P chairman Jeff Kaufmann says Cheney has done nothing but tear at the fabric of the party and alienate G-O-P voters.