House votes to remove Greene from committees
WASHINGTON — The House voted 230-199 on Thursday to remove Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments. Greene had earlier attempted on the floor to distance herself from previous violent and outlandish comments without renouncing them, while also claiming Democrats were out to “crucify” her for speaking her mind.
No Democrat voted against the resolution to expel Greene from House committees. Eleven Republicans broke ranks to support the measure’s adoption.
Prior to her election to Congress last year, Greene expressed support on social media for the assassination of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, agreed with those who said the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2018 was a “false flag” operation, questioned whether a plane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, said President Barack Obama was Muslim, posted a photo of herself on Facebook holding a gun to images of Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, mused that a space laser aligned with Jewish financial interests caused devastating wildfires in California and aligned herself with QAnon, a baseless belief about an anti-Trump “deep state” that engages in child sex trafficking and satanism.
Greene did say “school shootings are absolutely real” and that “9/11 absolutely happened,” which does not contradict her conspiracy theories about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School or that a plane did not hit the Pentagon. Saying she was present as a student when a fellow student took her school hostage, she said, “I know the fear that David Hogg had that day.” Among her behavior in question was video footage of her confronting Hogg, a survivor of the Parkland shooting and calling him a “coward.”
H. Res. 72, which was introduced by Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, would remove Greene from the Education and Labor Committee and the Budget Committee. Greene will still be able to vote and give speeches on the House floor.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., decried the move by the Democratic majority as an unprecedented power grab and argued that because Greene’s comments were made before she was a member, the House should not address it.
McCarthy said Democrats would regret their decision to strip Greene’s committee seats.
