The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Hayes seeks to remove Greene from House panel
Freshman GOP lawmaker from Ga. has expressed support for conspiracies
WASHINGTON — Democrat U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes is circulating a letter to remove Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia from the House Education and Labor Committee after a number of past incendiary comments from the congresswoman surfaced over the past week, including posts where she agreed the Sandy Hook school shooting was staged.
Greene’s comments prompted outrage from the families of Sandy Hook victims in Newtown, which falls in Hayes’ district. Hayes, the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, who was a classroom teacher in Connecticut in 2012 at the time of the Sandy Hook shooting, said in an interview she was “shocked” when Greene was selected for the Education Committee earlier this week.
“Representative Greene, who has shown such a heinous and wanton disregard for school safety, student trauma and ultimately, the truth, has proven that she cannot be expected to engage in good faith discussions of policy,” the letter Hayes is circulating states.
Hayes said Thursday evening about 120 Democrats have signed on. The letter will be delivered to Republican leadership.
Hayes said she would support censuring or expelling Greene from Congress for her rhetoric. Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., has said he will introduce a resolution to expel Greene from Congress that could get a vote as early as next week.
Greene said Thursday Democrats are coming after her because she is a threat to “their goal of socialism.”
“Democrats and their spokesmen in the Fake News Media will stop at nothing to defeat conservative Republicans,” Greene said. “They are coming after me because like President Trump, I will always defend conservative values. They want to take me out because I represent the people. And they absolutely hate it.”
Greene has faced widespread criticism from Republicans and Democrats over the past week for multiple comments that suggested school shootings were planned. A video showing her confronting Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg outside the U.S. Capitol before she was elected to Congress went viral.
In other past comments, Greene, a QAnon supporter, indicated support for executing Democrats and FBI agents. She also promoted the false theory that PG&E started the devastating California wildfires 2018 with space lasers. Past reporting has revealed she posted hours of Facebook videos that included racist, Islamaphobic and antiSemitic comments.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday “Assigning her to the Education Committee when she has mocked the killing of little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, when she has mocked the killing of teenagers in high school at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas
Greene has faced widespread criticism from Republicans and Democrats over the past week for multiple comments that suggested school shootings were planned. A video showing her confronting Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg outside the U.S. Capitol before she was elected to Congress went viral.
High School, what could they be thinking?"
“It's absolutely appalling, and I think the focus has to be on the Republican leadership of this House of Representatives for the disregard they have for the death of those children," Pelosi added.
Chair of the Education Committee, Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., also lambasted Greene’s appointment to the committee.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., GOP Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., have condemned Greene’s rhetoric. McCarthy said he would have a conversation with Greene.
Greene wrote in 2018 “that is all true” on a Facebook post that claimed the Sandy Hook and Parkland shootings were “stagged [sic],” along with the 1981 assassination attempt on
Ronald Reagan and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The post was surfaced by Media Matters last week.
Nicole Hockley, mother of six-year-old Dylan who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, invited Greene last week to Newtown to see her son’s ashes and his “bullet-hole riddled sweatshirt.”
“Having a Sandy Hook and Parkland denier on the House Education and Labor Committee is an attack on any and every family whose loved ones were murdered in mass shootings that have now become fodder for hoaxers,” Hockley and Mark Barden, father of shooting victim Daniel Barden, said Thursday.
Asked if Greene still believes the school shootings were staged, her spokesman Nick Dyer said simply “no” and referred the reporter to a Twitter statement from Greene, in which she referred to the 2018 Parkland shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as “tragic” and said the students who died should have been protected by “good guys with guns.”
Hayes said she’s never discussed Greene’s views with her.
“I’ve said hello going to the floor,” Hayes said. “But I have to tell you on the occasions when I’ve seen her, I’ve seen her yelling at floor staff or refusing to put on a mask or refusing to go through a metal detector. So generally when we’ve been on the floor at the same time, she’s been causing just a tremendous scene and just attempting to defy House rules. So there really hasn’t been much opportunity for dialogue.” She added she’s not looking for a conversation on the matter because “There is no place for collaboration when that’s your starting point.”
The false, extremist theory that the Sandy Hook shooting, which killed 26 people, including 20 children, was a hoax, has plagued Newtown families for years, promoted by Infowars host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and others. Now even Jones doesn’t believe it was staged, like he did in 2014, according to court documents. But other extremists continue to hound and harass Sandy Hook families over the falsehood.