Marjorie Taylor Greene walks back conspiracy theories, but says news media ‘just as guilty as QAnon’

Marjorie Taylor Greene walked back some of her outlandish conspiracy theories on the floor of Congress – but ended with an astonishing claim.

Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has given a speech on the floor of the US House of Representatives walking back some of her extreme views ahead of a vote to strip her of her committee assignments later today.

Democrats in Congress are pushing to kick Ms Greene off both the Education and Labour Committee and the Budget Committee.

At issue is her history of voicing support for political violence and conspiracy theories, including QAnon, whose central premise is that a cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles secretly control the government.

“There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” Ms Greene said in a video uploaded to YouTube in 2017.

QAnon’s adherents long believed that Donald Trump, while he was president, was on the cusp of ordering mass arrests and executions. The theory has obviously faded somewhat since he was replaced by Joe Biden.

Facing the imminent revocation of her committee assignments, Ms Greene spoke on the floor of the House this afternoon. She addressed her remarks to her Democratic colleagues.

“You only know me by how Media Matters, CNN, MSNBC and the rest of the mainstream media is portraying me,” Ms Greene said.

“What you need to know about me is I’m a very regular American, just like the people I represent in my district and people across the country. I never, ever considered to run for Congress or even get involved in politics.”

She said she was not political at all until Donald Trump ran for president, but he inspired her to take an interest.

“So when we elected President Trump, and then I started seeing things in the news that didn’t make sense to me, like Russian collusion – which are conspiracy theories also, and have been proven so – these things bothered me deeply,” she said.

“And I realised, just watching CNN or Fox News, I may not find the truth.”

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Ms Greene walking back to her office after speaking today. Her mask reads: “Free Speech” Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFP

The Mueller investigation into Russia’s election interference resulted in dozens of arrests and convictions, including several members of Mr Trump’s inner circle. It did not find evidence that the former president himself “colluded” with Russia.

Investigators did discover that Mr Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, had secretly passed internal campaign information to a Russian intelligence officer.

“I started looking at things on the internet, asking questions, like most people do every day,” Ms Greene continued.

“I stumbled across something, and this was at the end of 2017, called QAnon. Well, these posts were mainly about this Russian collusion information. A lot of it was what I would see on the news at night, and I got very interested in it.

“So I posted about it on Facebook. I read about it, I talked about it. I asked questions about it. And then more information came from it.

“But you see, here’s the problem. Throughout 2018, because I was upset about things – and didn’t trust the government, really, because the people here weren’t doing the things that I thought they should be doing for us – and I want you to know, a lot of Americans don’t trust our government. And that’s sad.

“The problem with that though is I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true, and I would ask questions about them and talk about them. And that is absolutely what I regret.

“Because 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 and accuse me of anything wrong.”

It is true that the bulk of Ms Greene’s most controversial public statements came in 2018. Not all of them, though.

In 2019, she was still voicing support for the idea of executing prominent Democrats, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. More recently, she embraced Mr Trump’s baseless claim that the election was stolen from him and he actually won in a “landslide”.

Reporters have also noted that she shared an article praising QAnon just last December, in a tweet she has since deleted.

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Ms Greene on January 3, wearing a face mask on the floor of the House claiming “Trump won”. Picture: Erin Scott/AFP

“Later in 2018, when I started finding misinformation, lies, things that were not true in these QAnon posts, I stopped believing it,” Ms Greene said.

“And I want to tell you, any source – and I say this to everyone – any source of information that is a mix of truth and a mix of lies is dangerous, no matter what it is saying, what party it is helping, anything or any country it’s about. It’s dangerous.

“So I walked away from those things, and I decided, ‘I’m going to do what I’ve done my whole life. I’m going to work hard, and solve the problems that I’m upset about.’ So I started to get involved in politics.”

Moving on, she alluded to her previous claims that mass shootings, such as those in Las Vegas and Parkland, were “false flag” operations staged by the US government to build support for gun control measures.

Footage recently surfaced of Ms Greene harassing Parkland survivor David Hogg on the streets of Washington D.C. and calling him a “coward”. Seventeen people died in that shooting, and Mr Hogg went on to advocate for stricter gun control.

“You see, school shootings are absolutely real,” Ms Greene told the House.

“And every child that is lost, those families mourn it. I understand how terrible it is because when I was 16 years old, my school was a gun free school zone, and one of my schoolmates brought guns to school and took our entire school hostage.

“I know the fear that David Hogg had that day. I know the fear that these kids have. And this is why – and I say this sincerely, with all my heart – I truly believe that children at school should never be left unprotected.”

Ms Greene also alluded to her claim that there has never been “any evidence” that the “so-called plane” crashed into the Pentagon during the 9/11 terror attacks.

“I also want to tell you 9/11 absolutely happened. I remember that day, crying all day long, watching it on the news,” she said.

“It’s a tragedy for anyone to say it didn’t happen, and so that I do want to tell you. I do not believe that it’s fake.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) still doubled down on her partial support of the QAnon conspiracy movement, calling it "a mix of truth and a mix of lies."

There is no truth whatsoever to QAnon. pic.twitter.com/MR0sWlGm2s

— The Recount (@therecount) February 4, 2021

She ended her speech by drawing an equivalence between QAnon and the news media.

“I also want to tell you that we’ve got to do better,” she said.

“You see, big media companies can take teeny tiny pieces of words that I said, that you have said, any of us, and can portray us into someone that we’re not. And that is wrong.

“Cancel culture is a real thing, it is very real. And with big tech companies like Twitter, you can scroll through and see where someone may have retweeted porn? This is a problem. This is a terrible, terrible thing.

“But yet, when I say that I absolutely believe, with all my heart, that God’s creation is – he created them male and female, and that should not be denied – when I am censored for saying those types of things, that is wrong.

“I never once said, during my entire campaign, QAnon. I never once said any of the things that I am being accused of today during my campaign. I never said any of these things since I have been elected to Congress.

“These were words of the past, and these things do not represent me, they do not represent my district, and they do not represent my values.

“If this Congress is to condone riots that have hurt the American people, police officers, occupied federal property, burned businesses and cities – but yet wants to condemn me and crucify me in the public square for words that I said and I regret a few years ago, then I think we are in a real big problem.

“What shall we do as Americans? Shall we stay divided like this? Will we allow the media, that is just as guilty as QAnon, of presenting truth and lies to divide us? Will we allow ourselves to be addicted to hate, and hating one another? I hope not.”

Ms Greene did not address all of her previous claims, though to be fair, that would have taken a fair amount of time. Here’s a quick rundown of some other theories she espoused.

In a 2017 blog post, Ms Greene expressed support for the theory that Mr Trump’s first election opponent, Hillary Clinton, secretly ran a child trafficking ring out of a pizza restaurant in Washington D.C..

She also suggested the Clintons

In 2018, she spread the theory known as “Frazzledrip”, which claimed Ms Clinton and one of her aides had “filleted” a young girl’s face off and then worn it as a mask.

She said former president Barack Obama was secretly a Muslim and had opened up America’s borders to “an invasion by Muslims”.

And in November of 2018, Ms Greene theorised that the Camp Fire that ravaged California, killing 85 people, had been caused by a space laser.