SALT LAKE CITY As criminal and congressional investigators close in on former President Donald Trump , the party he leads continues to bend to his will with a new rule designed to punish the debate organization in which Trump performed poorly in both of his campaigns and a resolution condemning two of Trumps most outspoken Republican critics.

At its winter meeting at a plush hotel in the shadow of the snow-capped Wasatch Range, the Republican National Committee is moving forward with a rule that its 2024 presidential nominee must refuse to participate in the autumn debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonpartisan group that has organized them for more than three decades.

Its a good idea. Its been a problem for a long time, said Ohio committee member Jim Dicke.

The move comes after a failed effort by the RNC to force the commission to change its format in a number of ways to be more fair to Republicans . It was led by David Bossie, a Trump campaign adviser in both 2016 and 2020 and now an RNC committee member from Maryland.

Bossie, who declined to comment, is also behind a resolution demanding that House GOP leaders expel Reps. Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, and Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois, from the Republican caucus for being insufficiently loyal to Trump. Both are serving on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol, which Trump incited for weeks with lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him through massive fraud.

Were requesting that they do their jobs and kick them out, Louisiana committee member Roger Villere, a resolution co-sponsor, said.

A number of RNC members said the resolution is likely to be watered down, but that some form of it probably has the support to pass the full 168-member group. Members have been grumbling for a while that Cheneys and Kinzingers participation has given the Jan. 6 committee which has started to subpoena RNC members and staff in its efforts to document Trumps scheme to overturn his election loss the ability to call itself bipartisan.

Theres a lot of criticism around here of Cheney and Kinzinger already, said Nebraska committee member J.L. Spray.