QAnon promoter cries ‘false flag’
Congresswoman makes claim about Stoneman Douglas massacre
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican QAnon conspiracy promoter, wrote on Facebook that the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre was a “false flag” operation.
Her claim, from 2018, was unearthed and reported by Media Matters, a left-leaning news site that focuses on conservative media.
The Media Matters report included screen shots and links to the posts, which were still visible Tuesday.
Discovery of the Georgia congresswoman’s view — which has no basis in reality — was greeted with disgust by people with firsthand knowledge of the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre where 17 people died and 17 hurt at the Parkland High School.
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime, was murdered at the school, addressed his response to Greene in a Twitter post on Tuesday and included a picture of her. “We have never met. It appears you think or at one time thought the school shooting in Florida was a false flag. I know you have met Parkland parents. This is my daughter Jaime, she was killed that day. Do you still believe this? Why would you say this?”
Guttenberg said Greene should resign.
U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Broward/Palm Beach County Democrat whose district includes the school campus, didn’t go as far as Guttenberg. But he called Greene’s comments “insensitive, offensive, and shockingly inappropriate for a member of Congress.”
“Radical conspiracy theorists cruelly came to our community in the days after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to outrageously deny that 17 people were killed. It’s infuriating that someone like that was elected to Congress,” Deutch said in a statement Tuesday.
“Representative Greene should disavow these comments, she should apologize to everyone that she has offended, and, most importantly, she should tell her followers the truth. The truth that 17 people were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in a mass shooting,” he said.
After the controversy over her comments had been raging for hours, Greene posted a lengthy statement about school violence on Twitter. “‘Gun-free’ school zones are a FAILURE. Laws that prevent legal ownership of firearms turn schools into targets,” she wrote, promising to introduce legislation to repeal gun-free school zones.
She didn’t offer any kind of explanation for her comments about Stoneman Douglas or an apology.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Broward/ Miami-Dade County Democrat said on Twitter that suggesting the shooting was a false flag “is repulsive, disgraceful & ignorant.” She called on Greene to “stop shamelessly spreading harmful, hurtful conspiracy theories. I challenge you: join me in SoFla to say that to the victims & their families’ faces.”
Jared Moskowitz said Greene should either quit in disgrace over the comments or visit the site of the massacre.
“You should resign or in the alternative get on a plane (wear a mask) and come to my city #parkland and visit @ MSDHighSchool,” he wrote on Twitter, suggesting that
Greene talk to Guttenberg and other family members who lost loved ones. “Then go to the grave sites. Those kids didn’t make it home that day. I was there.”
Moskowitz, a Stoneman Douglas graduate, was a state representative from Parkland at the time of the massacre. He is now director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
David Hogg, a student at Stoneman Douglas at the time of the shooting and now an activist fighting gun violence, said on Twitter that Greene should resign. “Why did you call the shooting at my high school a false flag? 17 classmates and staff died — spreading conspiracies about this tragedy is disgusting,” he added.
In addition to commenting that the massacre was a “false flag” planned event, Media Matters reported that Greene said in a separate 2018 Facebook post that “I am told 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.”
Many of Greene’s views have no basis in reality. Before her candidacy, Media Matters reported that: “She has pushed the QAnon and Pizzagate conspiracy theories; falsely claimed that there’s no evidence a plane crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11; labeled the 2018 pipe bomb packages to members of Congress and others a hoax; accused the Obama administration of killing former Democratic staffer Seth Rich; and pushed anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic rhetoric, among other things.”
A “false flag” event is something that is faked or in which an attacker is pretending to be someone else. The Washington Post explanation of conspiracy theories explained that “a classic falseflag attack is one in which a perpetrator dresses up as the enemy to create the impression that the enemy committed an atrocity.”
Greene’s “false flag” assertion was a comment about how Broward Sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson, disgraced for his non-response to the shooting, was receiving a pension.
A commenter claimed that it was “a pay off to keep his mouth shut since it was a false flag planned shooting.”
Greene’s reply: “Exactly.” Another comment reported by Media Matters claimed the Peterson pension was a “Kick back for going along with the evil plan. You know it’s not for doing a good job.”
Greene’s response: “My thoughts exactly!! Paid to do what he did and keep his mouth shut!”
In her Twitter statement Tuesday, Greene repeated her criticism of the idea that Peterson would receive a pension. “Scot Peterson allowed children to be left defenseless against an active shooter. when he was supposed to protect them, he was a coward and refused to go in.” Peterson was the school resource officer assigned to the Parkland high school the day of the massacre.
She also said she “personally understand[s] the fear as a student when there is no good guy with a gun to protect us from the bad guy with guns,” Greene said, explaining she was “locked in a classroom in 11th grade due to a fellow student who brought guns to our ‘gun-free’ school intent to kill others.”
Greene started her first term in Congress on Jan. 3.
On Sunday, Twitter locked Greene’s account for 12 hours for what the company said was violating its “civic integrity policy.” She has repeatedly posted unfounded claims about the election.
She’s also received notoriety for promising to introduce articles of impeachment for Joe Biden on Thursday, the day after he is inaugurated.
Deutch said Greene also needs to comment truthfully about “QAnon and its racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric” and her support for “Trump’s lie that the election was stolen from him, which led to the attack on the Capitol.”
A call to Greene’s Washington office on Tuesday went immediately to voice mail.
Her most recent news release is about her effort to impeach Biden. She didn’t address the matter on Twitter. Her most recent posts talked about impeaching Biden and about arrests at a protest in New York on Monday.