The Democrat-led House of Representatives voted last Thursday to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee roles after a string of past controversial statements and posts were rediscovered revealing support for fringe conspiracy theories and support for political violence against Democrats and federal agents.
Greene’s list of beliefs and endorsements relating to controversial conspiracies stretch back to 2017, when after “seeing things in the news that didn’t make sense to me,” she “stumbled across” and became an advocate for QAnon, a fringe right-wing conspiracy theory that alleges the existence of a shadow cabal of Satan-worshiping elitist pedophiles composed primarily by Democrats, liberal Hollywood elites and personalities typically opposed to conservative thought, according to CNN.
The Georgian representative also engaged with the discredited Pizzagate and Frazzledrip conspiracies in 2018, both of which accuse influential Democrats of participating in secretive human trafficking and pedophile rings to aid in Satanic cannibalistic rituals, according to an article published by Media Matters for America.
In 2018, Greene agreed with a Facebook comment alleging that the deadly mass shooting that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that took 17 lives was a staged event. Greene posted separately that she had private information that “Nancy Pelosi tells Hillary Clinton several times a month that ‘we need another school shooting’ in order to persuade the public to want strict gun control, according to an article published by Media Matters for America.
Greene’s fringe beliefs took action in March 2019 when she confronted Parkland shooting survivor and political activist David Hogg in the streets of Washington, D.C., in a video published by NowThis News.
The then-political commentator followed Hogg around, questioning how the boy was able to meet with U.S. senators and accusing the shooting survivor of having “Soros and his major liberal funding.” Greene went on to lambast the activist as an “idiot” and “completely trained” in a 2019 interview with firearm activist group Georgia Gun Owners Inc. on Facebook.
“I confronted David Hogg twice, and he ran away from me,” Greene said. “No one’s covering my story. I want my second amendment, but none of you are covering my voice. You’re only covering their voice because they’re paid for it.”
Prior to the motion to remove Greene from her committee roles, the Representative defended her previous actions and beliefs as that of someone who was “allowed to believe in things that weren’t true.”
“If it weren’t for the Facebook posts and comments that I liked in 2018, I wouldn’t be standing here today and you couldn’t point a finger at me and accuse me of anything wrong,” Greene said.
The motion was passed by 230-199. 11 House Republicans crossed party lines to strip Greene of her seats on the Budget Committee and House Education and Labor Committee.
“As I have repeatedly criticized Ilhan Omar for her anti-Semitic comments, I had to hold Marjorie Taylor Greene accountable for her denial of the Parkland Massacre, the Flight 77 crash, and accusing a Jewish family of starting wildfires,” said Rep. Maria Salazar, a Florida Republican who voted in favor of removing Greene from her committee seats.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy disavowed the past comments made by Greene, but voted against removing her from her committee positions and called the motion to remove her a “partisan power grab.”
“Past comments from and endorsed by Marjorie Taylor Greene on school shootings, political violence, and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories do not represent the values or beliefs of the House Republican Conference. I condemn those comments unequivocally. I condemned them in the past. I continue to condemn them today. This House condemned QAnon last Congress and continues to do so today,” McCarthy said.
“I understand that Marjorie’s comments have caused deep wounds to many and as a result, I offered Majority Leader Hoyer a path to lower the temperature and address these concerns. Instead of coming together to do that, the Democrats are choosing to raise the temperature by taking the unprecedented step to further their partisan power grab regarding the committee assignments of the other party.”
“In the end, this resolution continues to distract Congress, especially given the limited time that Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat leadership want the House to debate and work on what it needs to focus on: getting Americans back to work, getting kids back to school, and providing vaccines to all Americans who need it.”
