North Texan Pat Fallon headed to Wyoming to oust fellow Republican Rep. Liz Cheney

Rep. Pat Fallon closed out a Rockwall town hall Thursday night by sharing his upcoming travel plans.

“I’m going to Wyoming this weekend to knock doors against Liz Cheney,” the Sherman Republican announced to cheers from the receptive audience.

Former President Donald Trump has focused on defeating Cheney after she supported his second impeachment and embraced her position as vice chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Polling indicates she faces an uphill battle in Tuesday’s Republican primary, trailing well behind pro-Trump challenger Harriet Hageman in a high-profile showdown between more traditional GOP figures and those aligned with Trump.

Cheney hasn’t shied away from her Trump opposition, releasing a new ad online this week highlighting her Jan. 6 views. Cheney has the backing of at least some Democrats who say they disagree with her policy positions but appreciate her stand against Trump.

Fallon confirmed in an interview that he plans to urge Wyoming voters face-to-face to reject Cheney.

“I was a fan of Liz Cheney’s before this Congress, and then I knew that she had a beef with Trump and you know what, again, you can’t agree with everybody so you just look the other way, that’s fine,” he said.

But Fallon said Cheney “wouldn’t let it go” and move on, even after Republicans moved to strip her of her leadership position in the Republican conference.

“She’s become a spokesperson for the Democratic Party,” Fallon said.

Fallon has plenty of company among fellow Republican incumbents in opposing Cheney. More than 100 House Republicans signed on to host a fundraiser for Hageman earlier this year.

Conversely, other Texans have opened up their wallets to support Cheney.

According to Open Secrets, 96 percent of her campaign contributions this cycle have come from outside her state — with at least $844,000 pouring in from Texas.

That includes more than $342,000 from the Dallas metropolitan area, putting it third behind just Washington, D.C., and New York as the top cities financially supporting her campaign.

Cheney’s family has a long history in Dallas and Texas.

Her father Dick Cheney is a former Dallas resident who in 1995 became the CEO of Halliburton, one of the world’s largest energy service companies that has since moved its headquarters to Houston.

He remained in that position until another Dallasite, George W. Bush, asked him to be his running mate for vice president in 2000, and they served two terms together.

Previously, Dick Cheney held Wyoming’s U.S. House seat for six terms and was defense secretary under another Texan, President George H.W. Bush, and was a major player in the first war with Iraq.

Jan. 6 attack investigation

After Senate Republicans blocked an attempt to create a 9/11-style commission to investigate Jan. 6, the House voted to form its own select committee.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., rejected two of the Republicans’ selections for the panel: Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana.

Pelosi said their past actions and statements would have threatened the integrity of the investigation.

Republicans responded by simply not participating in the committee’s work, but Pelosi appointed two GOP members who have been highly critical of Trump — Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.

The committee held a series of highly scripted and slickly-produced hearings over the summer, featuring teleprompter-read statements and multimedia presentations along with live witness testimony.

Those sessions laid out how Trump was informed repeatedly by his own Cabinet members and top advisers that allegations of widespread voter fraud and a stolen election were bogus.

But he ignored them and urged supporters to come to Washington and march on the Capitol, where lawmakers were in the process of certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.

Cheney said during one of the hearings that officials in this country swear an oath to the Constitution, not an individual or political party.

“I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone but your dishonor will remain,” Cheney said.

Many Republicans unmoved

The hearings seem to have changed few Republican minds, however, as many in the party continue to stand behind Trump.

Fallon was part of a group of House Republicans who had dinner this week with the former president. Fallon posted on social media afterward that Trump is not intimidated by the FBI search of his home.

Rep. Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, also attended the dinner and tweeted a photo with the caption that the FBI, DOJ and White House should be ashamed.

During Thursday night’s town hall, Fallon criticized Pelosi’s rejection of Jordan and Banks from the Jan. 6 committee as a break with precedent.

Fallon recalled being a three-days-on-the-job freshman representative on Jan. 6, walking from a nearby hotel to the Capitol and marveling at what he described as thin security.

He said there should have been a “huge police presence” and National Guard troops on hand to deter troublemakers.

A member of the town hall audience asked whether Pelosi was responsible for the lack of National Guard troops.

Fallon said if Republicans, as is widely expected, retake the majority this fall, the House Oversight Committee on which he sits will examine that and other questions.

“Why wasn’t the National Guard there?” he said. “They’re all pointing fingers. So I think you’re gonna be fascinated. Get your popcorn.”

The Jan. 6 committee hearings have featured graphic testimony about the violence that left scores of police officers injured. One officer described how she found herself slipping in other people’s blood amid the chaos.

Fallon said he calls what happened a “riot” rather than an “insurrection” and estimated a “couple hundred people” showed up to engage in violence.

He compared them to “idiots” who tip over cars and set them on fire after a sports team wins a championship.

“They didn’t go to the game. They weren’t season ticket holders. They were just jerks that were intent on mayhem,” Fallon said. “And some of those folks came to D.C. intent on mayhem. I don’t know if they were Trump supporters or not but they were there to cause trouble.”

The hearings featured a host of evidence that rioters who stormed the Capitol saw themselves as acting in Trump’s name to shut down the certification of Biden’s victory.

Some of them were chanting “hang Mike Pence” because the vice president acknowledged that he had no authority to block the certification and a makeshift gallows was constructed on the Capitol grounds.

A federal judge appointed by Trump last week sentenced a North Texas militia member to seven years in prison, the longest sentence yet for any Jan. 6 rioter.

Guy Reffitt of Wylie urged others to follow him as he mounted the Capitol steps with body armor and a handgun. According to his defense attorney, he was radicalized by Trump but didn’t harm anyone and never entered the Capitol.

Fallon said Jan. 6 cases are working their way through the courts and that he has no sympathy for those who harm police officers, but objected to what he described as harsher treatment than those who have participated in other riots.

“They’re being adjudicated, these cases, but they’re being treated like they’re war criminals,” Fallon said.