Liz Cheney's challenger reveals he got a 14-year-old girl pregnant when he was 18 and is 'almost estranged' from his son

• One of Liz Cheney's primary challengers said he impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18.
• "She was a little younger than me so it's like the 'Romeo and Juliet' story," Anthony Bouchard said.
• He added that they got married when the girl was 15 and divorced three years later.

Anthony Bouchard, a conservative lawmaker mounting a primary challenge against Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, said on Thursday that he fathered a child with a 14-year-old girl when he was 18 and was "almost" estranged from his son. The woman died by suicide in 1990 when she was 20 years old, Bouchard said.

A Wyoming state senator, Bouchard said he wanted to get ahead of a news outlet and others investigating his past and disclosed the information in a 13-minute Facebook Live video. He wrote on Facebook that he was "dodging a bullet from the Fake News Media" by posting the video.

"So bottom line, it's a story when I was young, two teenagers, girl gets pregnant," he said. "You've heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me so it's like the 'Romeo and Juliet' story."

Bouchard and the girl, whose identity he didn't disclose, got married in Florida when she was 15 and divorced three years later, he told the Casper Star-Tribune. Florida's law at the time allowed for two people to get married at any age if there was a pregnancy involved and a parent consented, the news outlet said.

Bouchard said in his Facebook Live video that he had a strained relationship with his son.

"Sadly, he's made some wrong choices in his life," Bouchard said in the video.

"He's almost become my estranged son," he added. "Some of the things that he's got going on in his life, I certainly don't approve of them. But I'm not going to abandon him. I still love him, just like when he was born."

Bouchard said he and his ex-wife faced "pressure to abort" the pregnancy and "to go hide somewhere."

"I'm proud to have made pro-life decisions so young," he said.

Bouchard told the Star-Tribune that a "political opposition research company" hired an "investigator" who called his family members. He said the interest in his past indicated he was a strong candidate against Cheney.

"That also tells you that I'm in the lead because they wouldn't be doing this to me if I wasn't in the lead," he said. "If this is the best you got, bring it on because I'm not intimidated."

Jeremy Adler, a spokesperson for Cheney, told the Star-Tribune that Cheney's campaign was not involved in investigating Bouchard's past.

Bouchard, who is one of eight candidates running a primary challenge against Cheney, announced his congressional bid a week after Cheney voted to impeach former President Donald Trump over his role in the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

The Wyoming lawmaker has come under scrutiny from her own party in the months since her impeachment vote and was ousted as chair of the House Republican Conference earlier this month.

"Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar," Cheney said in a defiant floor speech the night before she was removed as the third-highest ranking Republican in the House.

"I will not participate in that," she added. "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."

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a staunch Trump loyalist and GOP rising star, replaced Cheney as the conference chair.

Cheney made the rounds on Sunday talk shows after her removal and vowed to continue fighting Trump's election disinformation.

"We have to recognize what it means for the nation to have a former president who has not conceded and who continues to suggest that our electoral system cannot function," Cheney said on ABC's "This Week."

"That kind of questioning about our process, frankly, it's the same kinds of things that the Chinese Communist Party says about democracy," she added, "that it's a failed system, that America is a failed nation."