A Wyoming Republican state lawmaker who is challenging U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney announced Thursday night that when he was 18 he impregnated a 14-year old girl. Senator Anthony Bouchard told supporters it was “like the Romeo and Juliet story.”
He did not disclose the girl’s age in his 13-minute Facebook Live video (below) titled “Senator Bouchard takes on the fake news media!” but later told the Star Tribune the girl was 14. He married her when she was 15 and he was 19, the Tribune reports. It ended he says in a “bitter” divorce three years later. When she was 20 she died by suicide.
“So, bottom line, it’s a story when I was young, two teenagers, girl gets pregnant,” he told supporters watching his Facebook Live video, while withholding her age. “You’ve heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me, so it’s like the Romeo and Juliet story.”
He also bragged about marrying the girl, who has not been named, rather than her having an abortion.
“I’m proud to have made pro-life decisions when so young,” he says.
“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,” Bouchard said. “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.”
Bouchard says, “I don’t want to hide anything,” and claims he wants “everyone to know,” while admitting the reason he went public with the information was because reporters and an opposition research company had been asking him questions. He also says the Cheney campaign was not involved.
“You’ll want to watch this and share it with everyone you know. I’m dodging a bullet from the Fake News Media and you can hear all about it here!” Bouchard writes on Facebook.
“This is really a message about how dirty politics is,” Bouchard adds. “They’ll stop at nothing, man, when you get in the lead and when you’re somebody that can’t be controlled, you’re somebody who works for the people. They’ll come after you. That’s why good people don’t run for office.”
Bouchard first ran for office in 2012, unsuccessfully, and again in 2014, unsuccessfully, before being elected to the state senate in 2016.
In 2009 he founded Wyoming Gun Owners, which has become an attack dog against state lawmakers, according to a July 2020 article that reported “most of its infrastructure is based out of state,” but “the organization maintains the veneer of a high-powered Wyoming lobbying organization.”
Here’s Sen. Bouchard’s video: