QAnon supporter in Congress must be expelled, say Democrats
REPUBLICANS are facing calls to expel a new congresswoman who backed conspiracy theories about a vast paedophile ring propping up the Democrats and claims that several high-profile school shootings were hoaxes.
Democrats are preparing a resolution to expel Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon supporter, who has been embroiled in near-daily scandals over her controversial comments since taking office this month.
But Republicans face a dilemma that strikes at the heart of the party’s future direction. Its position on Ms Greene is being seen as the first real test of whether the party wants – or is able – to move past Trump-style politics after the former president spent years advancing conspiracy theories of his own.
Ms Greene has spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about the school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, which she added a “thumbs up” to an online allegation the shooting was a “false flag” operation, and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, which claimed the lives of 20 children and six members of staff.
A video emerged this week of the congresswoman outside the US Capitol in 2019 confronting David Hogg, a 20-year-old Parkland shooting survivor whom she called a “Little Hitler”, berating him over his position on gun laws. “Assigning her to the education committee when she has mocked the killing of little children – what could they be thinking?” asked Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House speaker. “It’s absolutely appalling.”
Ms Pelosi intervened on Friday after Cori Bush asked to have her office moved away from Ms Greene “for her own safety” after a “maskless Marjorie Taylor Greene and her staff berated me in a hallway”.
Ms Greene has also speculated whether Jewish bankers used laser beams to ignite the California ia wildfires that engulfed swathes s of the state last summer. er. The 46- year- ol d Trump ally’s extrememist views have long been known but have been thrust rust back into the spotpotlight after she was sworn in.
While some me Republicans condemned Ms Greene’s posts, most remained mained quiet. She he has previously expressed support for QAnon, which centres on the debunked belief that top Democrats are involved in child sex trafficking. Facebook videos surfaced last year showing she had expressed racist, antiSemitic and anti-Muslim views. In one post, from January 2019, she “liked” a comment that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove Ms Pelosi. Ronna McDaniel, Republican National Committee chairman, called the posts “disgusting”, adding that they had “no place in our party” and “should be looked into”.
Ji Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat from Californ ifornia, said he was preparing a resolution to expel Ms Greene from Cong Congress. It is unlikely that Mr Gome Gomez’s efforts to force her from Congr Congress – where it would need a th three-quarters majority – will be successful. But Kevin McC McCarthy, the House Republican leader, could strip her of he her committee assignments ments. He said yesterday he would sit down for a “conversatio sation” with the congresswoman w next week. Ms Greene, meanwhile, said that she had spoken to Mr Trump and had his supp o r t . She ad added: “I’ll never apo apologise.”