Bipartisan House majority votes to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from committee assignments
WASHINGTON — A fiercely divided House tossed GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene off both her committees Thursday, an unprecedented punishment that Democrats said she had earned by spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories.
Underscoring the political vise her inflammatory commentary has clamped her party into, nearly all Republicans voted against the Democratic move, but none defended her lengthy history of outrageous social media posts.
Yet in a riveting moment, the freshman Republican from a deep-red corner of Georgia took to the House floor on her own behalf. She offered a mixture of backpedaling and finger-pointing as she wore a dark mask emblazoned with the words “FREE SPEECH.”
The chamber’s 230-199 vote, including support from 11 Republicans, was the latest instance of conspiracy theories becoming pitched political battlefields, an increasingly familiar occurrence during Donald Trump’s presidency. He faces a Senate trial next week for his House impeachment on a charge of inciting an insurrection after a mob he fueled with his false narrative of a stolen election attacked the Capitol.
Thursday’s fight also underscored the uproar and political complexities that Greene — a master of provoking Democrats, promoting herself and raising campaign money — has prompted since becoming a House candidate last year.
Addressing her colleagues, Greene tried to dissociate herself from her “words of the past.” Contradicting past social media posts, she said that she believes the 9/11 attacks and mass school shootings were real and that she no longer believes QAnon conspiracy theories, which include lies about Democratic-run pedophile rings.
Here’s a look at some of Greene’s statements and social media posts, many of which were deleted after the liberal group Media Matters unearthed them.
But she didn’t explicitly apologize for supportive online remarks she’s made on other subjects, as when she mused about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) being assassinated or the possibility of Jewish-controlled space rays causing wildfires. And she portrayed herself as the victim of unscrupulous “big media companies.”
News organizations “can take teeny, tiny pieces of words that I’ve said, that you have said, any of us, and can portray us as someone that we’re not,” she said. She added that “we’re in a real big problem” if the House punished her but tolerated “members that condone riots that have hurt American people” — a clear reference to last summer’s social justice protests that in some instances became violent.
Greene was on the Education and Budget committees. Democrats were especially aghast about her assignment to the Education Committee, considering the past doubt she cast on school shootings in Florida and Connecticut.
The political imperative for Democrats was clear: Greene’s support for violence and fictions were dangerous and merited punishment. Democrats and researchers said there was no apparent precedent for the full House removing a lawmaker from a committee, a step usually taken by their party leaders.
Trump’s legal team says he won’t testify at his Senate impeachment trial despite a request from House Democrats.
The calculation was more complicated for Republicans.
The calculation was more complicated for Republicans. Though Trump has left the White House, his devoted followers are numerous among GOP voters, and he and Greene are allies.
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) hopes GOP victories in the 2022 midterm will make him speaker. Republicans could undermine that scenario by alienating Trump’s and Greene’s passionate supporters, and McCarthy took no action to punish her.
“If any of our members threatened the safety of other members, we’d be the first ones to take them off a committee,” Pelosi told reporters. She said she was “profoundly concerned” about GOP leaders’ acceptance of an “extreme conspiracy theorist.”
“The party of Lincoln is becoming the party of violent conspiracy theories, and apparently the leaders of the Republican Party in the House today are not going to do a damned thing about it,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said.
Republicans tread carefully while searching for rallying points.
The company says the network’s reports on false voting fraud charges have damaged its reputation and business.
McCarthy said Greene’s past opinions “do not represent the views of my party.” But without naming the offenders, he said Pelosi hadn’t stripped committee memberships from Democrats who became embroiled in controversy. Among those he implicated was Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who made anti-Israel insults for which she later apologized.
“If that’s the new standard,” he said of Democrats’ move against Greene, “we have a long list.”
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Democrats were setting a precedent by punishing lawmakers for statements made before they were even candidates for Congress. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) warned, “You engage in wrong-speak, you’re in the Thunder Dome,” a term for an enclosed wrestling arena.
Committee assignments are crucial for lawmakers for shaping legislation affecting their districts, creating a national reputation and raising campaign contributions. Even social media stars such as Greene could find it harder to define themselves without the spotlights that committees provide.
Not all Republicans were willing to accept Greene’s statements, especially in the Senate. There, fringe GOP candidates have lost winnable races in recent years and leaders worry a continued linkage with Trump and conspiracists will inflict more damage.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) this week called Greene’s words a “cancer” on the GOP and the country. On Thursday, No. 2 GOP leader John Thune of South Dakota amplified that thinking.
Thune said House Republicans needed to issue a “really strong” rebuke of Greene’s conspiratorial formulations. Republicans must “get away from members dabbling in conspiracy theories,” Thune said. “I don’t think that’s a productive course of action or one that’s going to lead to much prosperity politically in the future.”
The fight came a day after Republicans resolved another battle and voted to keep Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in her leadership post. Pro-Trump conservatives tried removing her because she voted for Trump’s impeachment.
The House resolution punishing Greene was barely more than a page. It said House rules require lawmakers’ behavior to “reflect credibly” on the chamber and said Greene should be removed “in light of conduct she has exhibited.”
News organizations have unearthed countless social media videos and “likes” in which Greene embraced absurd theories such as suspicions that Hillary Clinton was behind the 1999 death of John F. Kennedy Jr. Greene responded, “Stage is being set,” when someone posted a question about hanging Clinton and former President Obama.
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