“Wyoming state Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R), who’s challenging Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) for her House seat, acknowledged … he impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18,” the Casper Star-Tribune reported on Friday, May 21, 2021. (Read story here.)
He says, “So, bottom line, it’s a story when I was young, two teenagers, girl gets pregnant. You’ve heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me, so it’s like the Romeo and Juliet story.”
Yeah, right.
Unless I’m mistaken, he committed statutory rape, a felony punishable by 20 years in prison (i.e., “second degree sexual abuse of a minor” under Wyoming law).
There’s more.
“Bouchard told the Star-Tribune he married the girl when she was 15 and he was 19. At the time, they were both living in Florida.”
Really? How? People under age 17 can’t legally marry in Florida, under that state’s laws. Oh, here’s how:
“The two were legally able to get married at the time because Florida law stated that people could marry at any age with a judge’s approval if a pregnancy was involved and a parent consented.”
What he says about that:
“A lot of pressure. Pressure to abort a baby. I got to tell you. I wasn’t going to do it, and neither was she. And there was pressure to have her banished from their family. Just pressure. Pressure to go hide somewhere. And the only thing I could see as the right thing to do was to get married and take care of him.”
Ah. It’s all about being against abortion. Because that plays well with Republican voters. But here’s what actually happened: “They got divorced approximately three years later. Bouchard’s ex-wife killed herself when she was 20.”
What he says about her suicide: “She had problems in another relationship.” In other words, blame someone else. “Her dad had committed suicide.” Her dad will do.
And the kid? “Sadly, he’s made some wrong choices in his life.” Nothing here about his own wrong choices; that’s entirely his kid’s fault.
It really sounds to me like Wyoming voters would being making a wrong choice, too, by tossing aside Liz Cheney to make room in Congress for this guy. But this is Trump’s party now, and Cheney voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol insurrection, which is a firing offense in Trump’s party.
That’s not a party I would ever vote for.