House Republicans, divided and angry, meet to decide fate of Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene

When House Republicans meet Wednesday, they'll be at odds over what to do about Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene, controversial figures representing the two wings of an increasingly fractured party.

But the closed-door gathering also could reveal a lot more about the direction of a party openly warring with itself while charting a future without Donald Trump in the White House but very much on GOP voters' minds.

Denver Riggleman, a former Virginia GOP congressman who lost reelection last year to a more conservative Republican, told USA TODAY Tuesday he fears the party will have a hard time shaking off Trump.

So he expects that Cheney who voted to impeach Trump could be in trouble despite her deeply conservative credentials, while Greene will get off with no more than a rap on the knuckles because of her allegiance to the president and his claims the Nov. 3 election was stolen.

U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. (Left) and U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
"This is all about being reelected," said Riggleman, a former Air Force officer and National Security Agency contractor who writes about extreme belief systems in his new book "Bigfoot ... It's complicated." "So it all goes back to polling. And that polling is suggesting that 'Stop the Steal' messaging is going to be effective in a lot of these Republican districts in 2022."

Cheney, the GOP Conference chair from Wyoming and the third most powerful House Republican, faces scorching backlash from Trump loyalists. They argue she should no longer be part of leadership given her vote to impeach the then-president following the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by pro-Trump supporters trying to overturn the Nov. 3 election President Joe Biden won.