GOP Challenger To Liz Cheney, Anthony Bouchard, Impregnated 14-Year-Old When He Was 18

State Sen. Anthony Bouchard (R-Wyo.) has confirmed that he impregnated a 14-year-old girl when he was 18. Bouchard is challenging Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) for her U.S. House seat after she supported former President Donald Trump‘s second impeachment.

In an effort to get ahead of the story, Bouchard revealed the relationship in a Facebook Live video on Thursday. “It’s amazing that they look at things so negatively,” he said. “So bottom line is it’s a story when I was young, two teenagers, girl gets pregnant. You’ve heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me, so it’s like the Romeo and Juliet story.”

He added: “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. And there was pressure to have her banished from their family. Just pressure. Pressure to go hide somewhere.”

Bouchard eventually married the girl when she turned 15. “The only thing I could see as the right thing to do was to get married and take care of them,” he said.

They divorced three years later, and the girl committed suicide shortly thereafter. “You know, this thing ended in kind of a bitter divorce,” he said. “All the odds were against us. We later became friends. She had problems in another relationship. Her dad had committed suicide… For whatever reason she decided to do the same.”

Bouchard revealed that he was recently contacted by a “U.K. media reporter” about the matter. In addition, Bouchard said that he decided to reveal the pregnancy story when he learned a political opposition research firm was looking into his previous marriage.

“We know the company that started this investigation,” he said. “It’s a political opposition research company. We know who they are. And then it turned into a U.K. media reporter, who called me. But if you look at him, he’s all part of that whole investigative team that smears people.”

Bouchard claims that this investigation of his personal history proves he’s a “front-runner” in the race against Cheney. “I’ve heard reports over a week ago calling family members, even offering to compensate them for anything they would give up on me,” he said. “That’s dirty. That also tells you I’m in the lead, because they wouldn’t be doing this to me if I wasn’t in the lead. They wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t the front-runner.”

In his Facebook video, Bouchard condemned “dirty politics” by the “establishment swamp,” telling his supporters not to believe “everything you see in the media.” “It’s a little bit of truth maybe, sprinkled with a lot of lies,” he said. “I’m going to stay in this race. We’re going to continue to raise money.”