As Liz Cheney addressed a hearing investigating the US Capitol riot, she delivered an ominous warning to the party to which she had devoted her whole life.
"Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonour will remain," she said.
Once the third-highest-ranking Republican and a member of a political dynasty, Cheney has become one of Trump's staunchest critics in the aftermath of January 6.
She has voted to impeach him, continuously criticised the billionaire over the attack on the Capitol and even written an opinion piece accusing the former president of undermining the very elements needed to make democracy function.
In the process, she has earned the ire of her colleagues and become an outcast in her own party.
Her actions could very well end her political career. The Republican National Committee voted to censure her over her participation in the January 6 probe while high-profile Republicans have branded her a "snake".
Trump, enraged by Cheney's attacks, has called for his voters to oust her, and backed her challenger in the Wyoming primary in August.
But Cheney remains unfazed, doggedly pursuing the former president "no matter what the short-term political consequences might be".
This week, as she took on a starring role in the prime-time hearings investigating the January 6 riot, she was only one of two Republicans to sit on the nine-member panel.
Surrounded by Democrats and watched by outraged Trump supporters, she calmly argued that Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the election.
"Aware of the rioters' chants to 'hang Mike Pence', the president responded with this sentiment: 'Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence 'deserves' it'," she told the hearing.
Cheney appears to be locked in a battle with Trump over the very soul of the Republican Party. The outcome could cement her place in history or end her chances of one day becoming president.
The girl born to power
Liz Cheney was born into the Republican establishment.
Her father, Dick Cheney, loomed large over the party for decades, playing a key role in multiple administrations.
Before he became vice-president under George W Bush, he was the youngest person ever appointed as a White House chief of staff.
But in 1976, when his boss President Gerald Ford failed to win re-election, Dick Cheney decided it was time to run for office himself.
"It made no sense to hang around Washington," he wrote in his 2011 memoir.
"[I]f you want to run for office, you have to get out of DC and establish yourself someplace around the country where you may some day have a chance to run."
He took his wife and their two daughters, Liz and Mary, back to his hometown of Casper, Wyoming so he could run to be the state's only member of Congress.
Once elected, the Cheneys were drawn back to the centre of American power where Liz graduated high school and eventually worked as a lawyer and consultant.
Her father was hand-picked as Bush's running mate, swiftly becoming one of the most influential vice-presidents in US history.
Dick Cheney, who made headlines for pushing for war in Iraq and accidentally shooting a friend in the face during a hunting expedition, was cast as a Darth Vader-like villain by Democrats.
But meanwhile, Liz was quietly building a career of her own in the party they both loved.
"Certainly in the US, being part of a political dynasty never hurts in terms of recognition and media exposure," said David Smith, associate professor in American politics and foreign policy at the United States Studies Centre.
"But she had really forged a legislative career of her own as a Republican lawmaker.
In 2012, she took her father's advice and returned to Wyoming so she could make her own bid for a seat at the table.
She had no idea that her Senate run would force her to choose between her ambitions and her own sister.
The political run that broke the Cheney family
Despite her family's deep roots, Wyoming gave Liz Cheney a chilly reception when she came home.
Called 'big sky country' for its dramatic scenery, the state is the most sparsely populated in America.
Those who choose to live on this rugged but beautiful land are mostly ranchers, cowboys and hunters who vote Republican.
But Cheney, despite her famous last name, was viewed as the ultimate Washington insider.
Even when she returned to Wyoming, she raised eyebrows by settling in the town of Jackson Hole, a ritzy ski resort that draws celebrities and the ultra-rich.
Among its most famous residents are Kanye, Harrison Ford and John Mars, the billionaire chocolate bar baron.
Cheney also riled locals by jumping into the race when current senator Mike Enzi, who also happened to be her father's fly-fishing buddy, had not even decided to retire yet.
The Republican primary soon got ugly, with mysterious robocalls to Wyoming residents claiming that Cheney "aggressively promotes gay marriage".
Whoever was behind the calls appeared to know that marriage equality was not just a fractious social issue in America, but also within the Cheney family.
Mary Cheney had come out to her parents when she was still in high school, and eventually fell in love with her future wife, Heather Pope.
Her father had engaged in a tricky high-wire act as a leader of the Republican party, voicing his personal support for marriage equality but saying it was a matter for the states.
But with her Senate bid on the line, Liz Cheney was unequivocal.
"I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage," she said.
"I love Mary very much, I love her family very much. This is just an issue on which we disagree."
The fallout was swift.
Mary took to Facebook to declare her sister "on the wrong side of history" and said her politics "treat my family as second-class citizens".
As the family schism became national news and the sisters stopped speaking, Liz Cheney dropped out of the Senate race.
But she didn't give up.
Two years later, with the help of family friends Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld, she ran for her father's old seat in the US House of Representatives.
She won with 60 per cent of the vote and swiftly rose through the ranks of the Republican house leadership.
"Liz Cheney has always had her own power base within the Republican Party," Dr Smith said.
"She's had this reputation as a loyal conservative and a loyal Republican, but nonetheless one who is prepared to act independently, because she has so much standing in the Republican Party."
With Trump in the White House and the Republicans in control of Congress, Cheney was firmly ensconced in the inner circle of power.
She voted in line with President Trump's policy positions approximately 92.9 per cent of the time.
"She really did have a lot of standing in her party — basically, until the end of the Trump administration," Dr Smith said.
Like many other powerful Republicans, Cheney had welcomed Trump — as well as his millions of voters — with open arms.
But when he lost the 2020 election and refused to admit defeat, the establishment realised they were no longer in control of the party.
While many of her colleagues stayed silent, Cheney decided she had a moral obligation to steer the country away from the "dangerous and anti-democratic Trump cult of personality".
The day that everything changed
On the morning of January 6, 2021, Liz Cheney received a concerned phone call from her father.
He had just watched the president speaking to a huge mob of his supporters outside the White House.
"We got to get rid of the weak Congress, people, the ones that aren't any good, the Liz Cheneys of the world," Trump said.
"We got to get rid of them. We got to get rid."
Cheney was due to make a speech at the Capitol as members of Congress certified election results, and her father was deeply worried about her safety.
By publicly acknowledging Joe Biden was the next president of the United States, Cheney had lost Trump's favour forever.
"This is about being able to tell your kids that you stood up and did the right thing," she told her father, according to the New York Times.
But she never got to make her speech.
As hundreds of the president's supporters mobbed the Capitol building, she and other politicians had to be evacuated.
In the chaos, Republican congressman Jim Jordan offered to escort the women from the chamber.
The staunch Trump supporter was part of a key group of Republican House members organising the party's effort to object to the counting of electoral votes.
"While these maniacs are going through the place, I'm standing in the aisle and he said, 'we need to get the ladies away from the aisle. Let me help you'," she later recalled.
In the days that followed, Cheney was the most senior of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach the outgoing president for inciting the insurrection.
"There has never been a greater betrayal by a president of the United States of his office and his oath to the constitution," she declared.
After a five-day Senate trial, Trump was acquitted.
But Ms Cheney refused to stay quiet about repeated fraudulent claims that the election was rigged.
"The 2020 presidential election was not stolen. Anyone who claims it was is spreading THE BIG LIE," she tweeted, parroting a phrase Trump had co-opted from critics describing his series of false allegations.
As the tensions reached a tipping point, a secret ballot was held on May 12 to decide Cheney's future.
House Republicans voted to strip their third-highest-ranking member of her leadership position and Cheney was banished to the GOP shadowlands.
In her final speech as Republican Conference Chair, she gave a defiant warning of an impending doom.
"Remaining silent and ignoring the lie emboldens the liar. I will not participate in that," she said.
"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."
A political gamble for the future of the Republican Party
Now, the congresswoman faces the fight of her life at the upcoming primary election to decide the Republican candidate for this year's midterms.
Her main challenger, Harriet Hageman, a former political adviser to Cheney and family ally, has refused to concede Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
And crucially, she has the endorsement and financial backing of Donald Trump.
The primary race is not decided, but in standing up and speaking out against the party, Cheney has no doubt taken a personal gamble, according to Dr Smith.
Wyoming has been described as the "Trumpiest state in the nation", with 70 per cent of voters choosing to re-elect him in 2020. Voters in the district are outraged by Cheney's criticism of Trump's election claims.
"She would have [spoken out against Trump] in the full knowledge that this could result in her excommunication from the Republican Party, or even her losing her seat in Congress," US historian at RMIT University Emma Shortis said.
Dr Smith agrees, noting that a lot of Republicans have been operating in the post-Trump era on "pure political survival instincts", and Cheney's path could prove to be fatal.
"Even if they felt that their lives were threatened by Trump's actions during January 6, they're still not prepared to oppose him, because of how the Republican base will respond," he said.
"[Cheney] knows that her political career could well be over as a result of this, but she's prepared to do it.
"She is not prepared to suffer the personal dishonour of standing by someone who she clearly despises."
As old establishment Republicans have left, Cheney's circle of supporters within the party has shrunk considerably.
The Republican Party in the new era of Trumpian politics is unlikely to go back to what it was in the period of George W Bush and Dick Cheney, observers argue.
In fact, the battle for the soul of the Republican Party has already been won, according to Dr Shortis.
"The fact that Liz Cheney is one of the sole figures actually standing up [to Trump] and talking about the danger to America, the rest of the party, and the kind of media architecture around it … suggests that battle has been won and has been won long ago," she said.
But Dr Smith said Cheney's gamble may pay off in other ways by solidifying her place as a "moral leader of old school conservatives".
"We increasingly see on the right side of politics in the United States that people often don't consider Congress to be the only political career that's out there, especially if you look at the power of different media figures on the right … some of whom once served in Congress," Dr Smith said.
"So that might be [one] career that Liz Cheney has in mind after Congress."
Another possibility could put her directly in the path of Trump in two years' time.
Would Cheney make a run for presidency in 2024?
With her future as the Wyoming representative under threat, political commentators have been pondering what role Cheney could play in the 2024 presidential election.
The congresswoman herself has described the possibility of Trump running again as "a dangerous moment".
"The stakes are really high. If Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, if Donald Trump is elected president again, I think that the republic is at risk," she told New York Times podcast The Daily on January 6 — a year after the insurrection.
"The notion that someone who has shown as little commitment to the constitution as he did would be entrusted with its preservation once again is something that I think we have to avoid at all costs."
Cheney has yet to rule out a run in 2024.
"I'm not surprised people are talking about it. It's certainly possible that she would run, but — for the moment at least — I can't imagine she would be able to secure the nomination given how captured the party is by Trump and his politics," Dr Shortis said.
"But anything could happen between now and 2024."
Dr Smith agrees the prospect could be appealing for the congresswoman who has already sacrificed her standing within the party.
"I don't know if Liz Cheney will throw her hat in the ring. If she did, she would have almost no chance of winning, but she might do it in order to make a point, she might do it in order to be on that debating stage with Trump tearing strips off him in real time," he said.
"I think something like that would be pretty appealing to her, even if she wouldn't have any real possible chance of winning the presidency."
In the meantime, Cheney is focused on the next race. She had just two words for Trump when he endorsed Hageman as her challenger: "Bring it."
And while Cheney has been largely exiled from the party to which she dedicated her life, she has found her way back to her family.
Last year, she publicly apologised for her stance on same-sex marriage, declaring: "I was wrong."
She and Mary Cheney have also repaired their relationship, and the congresswoman now counts her sister as one of her biggest supporters.
"I am very proud of how she handled herself," Mary wrote on Facebook the day after the Capitol riot.
"Good job, big sister."
