House Votes to Strip Marjorie Taylor Greene From Committees

Votes were 230-199 to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene just hours after she apologised for her past embrace of conspiracy theories.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, left, talks to Bob Good as they walk in the Cannon tunnel after a vote at the US Capitol on February 4. Picture: AFP

The House voted Thursday to remove Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee assignments, delivering a severe rebuke to the Georgia Republican hours after she said she regretted her past embrace of conspiracy theories.

The House voted 230-199 to remove Ms Greene from the budget and education committees, with 11 Republicans siding with Democrats. The move will diminish Ms Greene’s ability to shape legislation and work with other politicians, sidelining her just weeks into her first term in office.

Democrats said the move was a necessary response to counter the violent rhetoric and misinformation that helped foment the violent riot at the US Capitol on Jan. 6; Republicans warned that her removal could spark retaliation.

In a speech on the House floor Thursday, Ms Greene said she regretted posts she made about QAnon, the far-right-wing, loosely organised network and community of believers who embrace a range of unsubstantiated beliefs. Ms Greene said she realised in 2018 that she was receiving misinformation and stopped believing it.

“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,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene. Picture: AFP

“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,” she said Thursday, wearing a “Free Speech” mask. “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, because I’ve lived a very good life that I’m proud of.”

Democrats criticised Ms Greene’s speech, saying her remarks fell short of an apology. “It was unpersuasive,” said Representative G.K. Butterfield. “It is so easy to say ‘I am sorry.’ Those are three important words in our culture.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy opted Wednesday not to remove Ms Greene from her committees over her incendiary past comments, but urged her to publicly denounce them. But Republicans warned that Democrats would be setting a dangerous precedent by unilaterally ousting politicians from the other party off committees, and that such a move would open the door for retaliation, should Republicans retake the House majority next year.

“If we are now going to start judging what other members have said before they are members of Congress, I think it will be a hard time for the Democrats to place anybody on committee,” Mr McCarthy told reporters.”

Democrats said they had urged Republican leaders to remove Ms Greene on their own, but that GOP inaction forced them to hold the vote.

“I remain profoundly concerned about House Republican leadership’s acceptance of extreme conspiracy theorists,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Thursday. She said she wasn’t concerned about the possibility of GOP retribution. “If any of our members threaten the safety of other members, we’ll be the first ones to take them off of committee,” she said.

Stripping committee assignments is seen as a severe punishment by taking away a lawmaker’s ability to shape and influence legislation. Former GOP Iowa Representative Steve King was stripped of his assignments by fellow Republicans in 2019 after questioning what was wrong with white supremacy. He lost his primary in 2020.

A loyalist to former President Donald Trump, Ms Greene emerged as the most contentious new House Republican before arriving in Washington. While running for the GOP nomination last year, her online activity began to draw attention, including posts tying her to QAnon and other conspiracy theories, as well as comments vilifying Muslims and other groups.

Recently more of her past social-media posts have drawn attention, including remarks casting doubt on who was responsible for mass shootings, condoning violence against Democratic leaders and questioning whether a plane crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. In one post she speculated whether California wildfires were caused by lasers connected to the Rothschilds, a family often the subject of anti-Semitic tropes.

On the House floor Thursday, Ms Greene also addressed some of those past posts. She said that school shootings “are absolutely real” and that the events of September 11, 2001, did occur. “It’s a tragedy for anyone to say it didn’t happen,” she said.

Mr McCarthy met with Ms Greene on Tuesday night and said Wednesday that he had made clear to her that comments she made in the past wouldn’t be tolerated now that she is a member of Congress.

Democrats have also criticised her behaviour since becoming a member of Congress. Ms Greene has scoffed at wearing a mask in the Capitol complex, including when politicians were trapped together in a room on January 6. Several House Democrats later tested positive for the coronavirus. She also repeated Mr Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud that they allege incited the violent rioting of the US Capitol that day.

Mr McCarthy said Wednesday that he had offered a compromise to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer in which Ms Greene would be moved from the education committee to the small-business panel. Democrats dismissed the proposal.

Some Republicans made clear that if they win back control of the chamber, they will seek to strip contentious House Democrats from panels. A group of House GOP politicians introduced a measure that would leave Ms Greene on her committees but remove Representative Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Ms Omar drew criticism in 2019 when she made comments suggesting that politicians’ support for Israel was driven by money from a pro-Israel group. She later apologised.

“It’s a ridiculous distraction,” Ms. Omar said Thursday of the GOP provision, which she called a “racist, Islamophobic, hateful fuelled smear.”

Some Republicans said they hoped the vote wouldn’t trigger an intensifying partisan battle over committee assignments.

“I would hope my colleagues on the Republican side do not go down that path,” Rep. Tom Reed said Thursday. Mr Reed said that he condemned Ms Greene’s past comments but wouldn’t vote to remove her from committees. “What I will try to do is remind my colleagues that just because one side does it, doesn’t mean it’s right for the other side to do it.”

The Wall Street Journal