Liz Cheney said she refuses to 'whitewash' the Capitol Riot, calling Republicans who do 'disgraceful and despicable'

• Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney said she won't "whitewash" the events of the January 6 Capitol Riot.
• Cheney was ousted from her leadership position last week in the House GOP.
• "The notion that this was somehow a tourist event is disgraceful and despicable," she said.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney said Sunday that she refused to be part of the "whitewashing" of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol as members of the GOP work to distance themselves from it.

"It's indefensible," Cheney told ABC News' Jon Karl during an interview that aired Sunday on "This Week."

"I will never forget seeing the law enforcement officers, the members of the SWAT team, the rapid response forces - seeing them in their exhaustion," she said.

She continued: "They had been through hand-to-hand combat and people died. And the notion that this was somehow a tourist event is disgraceful and despicable, and I won't be part of whitewashing what happened on January 6. Nobody should be part of it and people oughta be held accountable."

At a House Oversight Committee meeting on the riots last week, GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde said it was a "bald-faced lie" to call the January 6 riot an "insurrection" and compared those who participated, of whom more than 460 have been charged with crimes, to tourists.

"Watching the TV footage of those who entered the Capitol and walked through Statuary Hall showed people in an orderly fashion staying between the...ropes taking videos and pictures," Clyde said, "You know, if you didn't know the TV footage was a video from January the 6th, you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit," he said.

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Cheney, meanwhile, has refused to acquiesce to Trump loyalists in the GOP and continues to speak out against him. She was one of the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in the House following his incitement of the insurrection.

In response, her colleagues last week in a vote removed her from her position as chair of the House Republican Conference.

"Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar," she last week. "I will not participate in that. I will not sit back and watch in silence while others lead our party down a path that abandons the rule of law and joins the former president's crusade to undermine our democracy."

Michigan Rep. Fred Upton, also a Republican, made similar comments Sunday during an appearance on CNN and said he didn't know why members of his own party were trying to downplay the riot.

"Bogus. It's absolutely bogus," he said. "It's absolutely bogus, you know, I was there I watched a number of the folks walk down to the White House and then back. I've got a balcony on my office. So I saw them go down. I heard the noise. The flashbangs smelled, some of the gases, it moved my way."