by Eric Lendrum
In January, billionaire Peter Thiel will be hosting two separate fundraisers for the frontrunner candidate to replace Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), alongside Donald Trump, Jr., the eldest son of President Donald Trump, Politico reports.
The fundraisers will both be held on January 26th in support of Harriet Hageman, a lawyer and former member of the Republican National Committee. Hageman is one of four Republican challengers seeking to unseat the unpopular incumbent congresswoman for Wyoming’s at-large congressional district in the primary election next year, and has earned the endorsement of President Trump. Hageman had previously run for Governor of Wyoming in 2018, coming in third place in the primary that year.
The first of the two Hageman fundraisers will be held at Thiel’s home in Miami in support of her campaign, while the second event will support a pro-Hageman super PAC called the Wyoming Values PAC. In addition to Thiel, Donald Trump Jr. is listed as a special guest for the event, along with his girlfriend, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle.
With a net worth of nearly $7 billion, Thiel – a co-founder of PayPal and one of the earliest investors in Facebook – has become one of the most prominent donors to the Republican Party in recent years. Besides Hageman, Thiel has lent his financial support to several other candidates in Republican primaries across the country. He has donated to the campaign of Joe Kent, a former Green Beret and U.S. Army officer who is challenging Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) in Washington’s 3rd congressional district; Kent, like Hageman, has been endorsed by President Trump. In the concurrent U.S. Senate election cycle next year, Thiel has donated to candidates such as J.D. Vance in Ohio and Blake Masters in Arizona.
Cheney and Beutler are two of the only ten Republican members of the House of Representatives who voted in favor of the second impeachment of President Trump, after the peaceful protest at the United States Capitol by his supporters on January 6th, which Democrats have falsely labeled an “insurrection.” Cheney in particular has remained unapologetic in her criticism of the popular former president, and is one of only two Republicans in the House currently serving on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) partisan committee on the January 6th protests, the other being Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who is not seeking re-election next year.
Cheney’s frequent insulting of President Trump and his supporters eventually led to her being removed from her position as Chair of the House Republican Conference, the third-highest position in House GOP leadership, where she was replaced with Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.).
While unseating Cheney is widely seen as a top priority for President Trump’s base in its efforts to remove anti-Trump Republicans from the party’s ranks, sources close to Thiel claim that he has other, more policy-oriented reasons for targeting Cheney. As the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Congresswoman Cheney maintains some of the most hawkish and interventionist foreign policy views in all of Congress, a stance with which Thiel, along with much of the anti-war base of the Republican Party, strongly disagrees.
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Eric Lendrum reports for American Greatness.
Photo “Harriet Hageman” by Harriet Hageman. Photo “Donald Trump Jr.” by Gage Skidmore CC BY-SA 2.0. Photo “Peter Theil” by Heisenberg Media CC BY 2.0.
