Pro-Trump Republican trying to oust Cheney says he got his girlfriend pregnant when she was 14: ‘It was like Romeo and Juliet’

Admission met with outrage and accusations of statutory rape

A pro-Trump Republican candidate hoping to oust Liz Cheney from her Wyoming congressional seat has shared details of his first marriage, describing it as a “tragic love story”, while others call it statutory rape.

State Senator Anthony Bouchard revealed that he had impregnated his 14-year-old girlfriend when he was 18 and that they married the following year — at the time legal in Florida, where they were living.

In a Facebook Live video, Mr Bouchard said he was trying to get ahead of the story having learned that his opponents were digging into his past. He did not specify their ages in the video but gave more details to The Casper Star-Tribune.

“Bottom line, it’s a story [of] 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.”

The couple came under pressure about their circumstances from family.

“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,” he explained. “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.”

The two were legally married with a judge’s approval, as Florida law stated that they were eligible, no matter their age, as a pregnancy was involved and a parent had consented.

The couple divorced approximately three years later and the woman died by suicide when she was 20.

Mr Bouchard raised their son but said that he has “almost become my estranged son” because he made some “wrong choices in his life”.

The state senator encouraged his followers to share the 13-minute Facebook video as he wants everyone to know the story, and does not want to hide anything.

He rails against “dirty politics”, the “establishment swamp”, and the media in the video.

Mr Bouchard said that information was already being pursued by a political opposition research company and a UK media outlet.

While Mr Bouchard may have got out ahead of the story, his framing of it as a “Romeo and Juliet story” has sparked outrage and accusations of statutory rape.

Christine Pelosi, Democratic Party strategist and daughter of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tweeted: “No. Sex between an 18 and a 14-year-old is statutory rape. I know because I prosecuted it.”

“14 was not the age of consent in Florida and although there are Romeo and Juliet laws, they are for teens ‘close in age’ which this couple was NOT,” she added.

Calling for an end to child marriage, Ms Pelsoi said it was a horrible vestige of institutionalised patriarchy that states allow people who commit statutory rape to perfect the crime by marrying the victim.

Ms Pelosi was not alone in her characterisation of the story, with others pointing out that the alleged rape, marriage, birth, divorce, and suicide all happened before the woman in question was old enough to buy alcohol.

Another focus was Mr Bouchard’s description of getting married as being “the right thing to do”.

“I guess it never occurred to him as an 18 yo that the right thing to do was to not have sex with a child in the first place,” read one tweet.

Eight people have announced that they will challenge Ms Cheney in the 2022 Republican primary.

Mr Bouchard was the first, and has ridden the wave of anti-Cheney feeling in the party since January, successfully raising money for his run as the incumbent Wyoming representative lost her leadership position in the House.

Donald Trump has said he will endorse a candidate to run against Ms Cheney but has yet to do so.