The Republican Party of Arizona has censured state House Speaker Rusty Bowers for testifying before the Jan 6 Panel and providing evidence on how Donald Trump and his allies plotted to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his state.
According to local station KTAR, the Arizona GOP cited “Bowers’ inaction on election integrity, co-sponsoring Democrat-led bills, and general disregard for precinct, legislative, county and state and national Republican Party leadership” for the censure.
The development comes weeks after Bowers’ testimony before the House Select Committee, in which he detailed the pressure he had faced from then-president Trump and his allies to support decertification of the state’s 2020 presidential election.
“I said I would not,” Bowers told the panel June 21,” noted KTAR. “The Mesa legislator said he had told Trump on multiple occasions he would not do anything illegal to help the former president and prior to testifying, Bowers called the push to overturn the election results ‘juvenile.'”
Since January 2021, the Arizona GOP also has censured Gov. Doug Ducey, former Sen. Jeff Flake, and Cindy McCain for disavowing the former president, the report stated.
After his testimony, Bowers initially said that he would support Trump if he were the Republican nominee again in 2024. But he has since backtracked on his remarks, saying that Trump’s actions have been “tyrannical” and that he isn’t sure whether he could back him again.
