WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans on the House Rules Committee condemned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s conspiracy theories as “absolutely repugnant” and “sick” but disagreed on whether to strip her of her committee assignments.
“This is truly sick stuff,” Democratic Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said at the Wednesday afternoon hearing as Congress continues to wrestle with how to disciple Greene, who has endorsed the fringe beliefs of the QAnon movement.
“Serving on a committee is not a right. It is a privilege. When a member talks about school shootings being ‘false flag operations,’ they should lose the privilege of serving on the Education and Labor Committee,” he went on.
“If this is not the bottom, then I don’t know what the hell is,” McGovern said.
House Democrats will vote Thursday on whether to boot Greene off the Education and Budget committees after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declined to do so.
The freshman Georgia congresswoman has floated the possibility that mass shootings are “false flag” operations by gun control advocates and she reportedly “liked” a Facebook post that said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should be executed.
A video also emerged last month of Greene berating Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor David Hogg in Washington, DC, and she bragged about it in an April 2019 interview where she called Hogg an “idiot” who “only talks when he is scripted.”
Rules Committee ranking member Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK.) said he believed Greene’s remarks were “repugnant” but argued that it was not up to the committee to strip her of her committee assignments.
“Proceeding down the current path establishes a new standard, not only for what members of Congress say before they are elected, but also what rights the majority party has to dictate the committee assignments of the minority members,” Cole said.
“It’s also the responsibility of each side to hold their members accountable for unacceptable behavior,” he went on.
A fired-up Texas GOP Rep. Brian Babin compared Greene’s remarks to the anti-Semitic statements made by Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar.
“The majority is seeking to hold Representative Greene to the standards of the House Rule for her conduct and words while she was a private citizen, but they have said nothing, it would do nothing, about Representative Omar’s conduct and words while she’s been in office” Babin said.
Greene has been unapologetic, and on Wednesday morning, defiantly tweeted that she was being persecuted for reasons unrelated to her belief in controversial theories including the QAnon movement.
“White, Woman, Wife, Mother, Christian, Conservative, Business Owner[.] These are the reasons they don’t want me on Ed & Labor. It’s my identity & my values,” she tweeted.
