(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has reportedly given GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy an ultimatum: remove Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) from her committee assignments in 72 hours or Democrats will bring the issue to the House floor.
Greene’s appointment to the House Education and Labor Committee and the House Budget Committee sparked outcry last week from Democrats who say that she should be disqualified from serving on the committee over a recently unearthed video of a 2019 incident in which she harassed a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, saying the survivor was paid by George Soros, as well as a 2018 Facebook post in which she agreed that the Sandy Hook and Stoneman Douglas shootings were “staged.”
Greene, a freshman congresswoman, has taken on a controversial reputation over her belief in the QAnon movement, which claims, among other things, that former President Donald Trump and his allies are secretly working to expose a deep-state ring of child sex traffickers.
Last week she also came under fire after Media Matters unearthed a 2018 Facebook post in which Greene made unfounded claims about the cause of California’s wildfires. She alleged that the Rothschilds, a wealthy Jewish banking family that is frequently the subject of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, may have used a laser beam from space to spark a forest fire in order to profit from it.
She also supported threats of violence against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats before her election to Congress.
“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene must be held accountable for her reprehensible statements, and I am discussing with members the best course of action to do so,” Hoyer said in a statement Monday.
A spokesman for McCarthy told Axios he is aware of Greene’s statements, calling them “deeply disturbing” and saying the GOP leader “plans to have a conversation with the Congresswoman about them. A meeting between McCarthy and Greene has still not been scheduled, according to Politico, but could happen as early as Tuesday evening.
Though it is unclear how Democrats will move to oust Greene from the committees, top Democrats on Sunday discussed a straightforward motion that would go through the House Rules Committee, according to Politico.
A separate measure led by Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.) would remove Greene from any House panel slots.
“We’re focused on making sure that we can render powerless the poisonous nature of this member,” Wasserman Schultz said Monday, before introducing her resolution. “The House has to be able to take actions to police its own membership.”
A number of House Democrats have expressed support for both a formal censure against Greene and for her expulsion from the House.
Meanwhile, McCarthy has not decided how to move forward and will not be swayed by Democrats, according to the report. Instead, he will base his decision on how his meeting with Greene goes later this week.
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