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Representative Jimmy Gomez drafts resolution to oust Marjorie Taylor Greene from Congress

By Brittany Bowker Globe Staff,Updated January 28, 2021, 11:50 a.m.
A congressman gestured to his mask as he asked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, right, to wear hers.T.J. Kirkpatrick/NYT

California Representative Jimmy Gomez announced on Wednesday that he planned to introduce a resolution calling for the expulsion of Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene from the House of Representatives.

On grounds of “repeated endorsements of sedition, domestic terrorism, and political violence,” the California Democrat called Greene “a clear and present danger to Congress and our democracy.”

In a tweet announcing the resolution, Gomez said Greene “did it to herself, and she must go.”

“As if it weren’t enough to amplify conspiracy theories that the September 11 attacks were an inside job and the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was staged, a string of recent media reports has now confirmed that Congresswoman [Greene] had previously supported social media posts calling for political violence against the Speaker of the House, members of Congress, and former President Barack Obama,” Congressman Gomez said in a statement.

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Gomez was referencing a flurry of alarming moments involving the Georgia Republican that came into light this week.

A CNN KFile review released Tuesday, for example, unveiled a series of Green’s past social media posts from as recently as 2019, including one that pushed a baseless QAnon conspiracy which casts Donald Trump “in an imagined battle against a sinister cabal of Democrats and celebrities who abuse children.” The FBI has called QAnon a domestic terrorism threat and the Department of Homeland Security issued a national terrorism bulletin Wednesday warning of the potential for lingering violence from extremists enraged by President Joe Biden’s election and emboldened by the attack on the Capitol.

In another post from Jan. 2019, Greene liked a comment that “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove Speaker Nancy Pelosi from the House. In other posts, CNN reports Greene liked comments about executing FBI agents who were part of the “deep state” working against Trump.

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In one Facebook post from 2018, Greene wrote a conspiracy about the Iran deal, which was a signature foreign policy achievement for former President Barack Obama. The post prompted a commenter to ask: “Now do we get to hang them? Meaning H & O?” referring to Obama and Hillary Clinton. Greene responded: “Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.”

Greene released a statement in response to the CNN review, in which she claimed many people have run her Facebook page.

In another post that surfaced this week, Greene pushed a claim that the Feb. 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting that killed 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was a “false flag” event — an incident that was faked or planned by someone other than the perpetrator to take away people’s guns. In May 2018, Greene posted a story about a disgraced sheiff’s deputy based near Parkland receiving a retirement pension. A commenter wrote: “It’s called pay off to keep his mouth shut since it was a false flag planned shooting,” to which Greene replied: “Exactly.” The posts have since been removed.

Another clip that surfaced Wednesday shows Greene heckling Parkland survivor and gun-control activist David Hogg. In the two-minute video, Greene follows Hogg around the US Capitol berating him with questions about red flag laws and Second Amendment rights: “Why are you using kids as a barrier? Do you not know how to defend your stance?” Hogg continued walking and didn’t address Greene.

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“He’s a coward,” Greene said at the end of the clip, claiming his activism was funded by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, who is often the subject of far-right conspiracy theories.

In another video, Greene can be heard harassing Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib in Feb. 2019 for taking their oaths on the Quran rather than the Bible. “They’re not really official, I don’t think,” Greene said in the clip. “Let’s go ask them to swear in on the Bible.”

In Sept. 2020, Greene posted a meme of herself pointing a gun towards progressive members of Congress. In June 2020, Politico published a series of clips of the Congresswoman espousing racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic attitudes, saying in one video that Muslims should be barred from serving in government.

Greene represents Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, and was elected to Congress in the November 2020 primary elections. She was sworn into the House this month.

Congressman Gomez, a Harvard Kennedy School grad, wasn’t alone in calling for Greene’s removal.

Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern tweeted “this is sick” and said both Greene and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy should resign.

A spokesman for House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy called the posts “deeply disturbing and Leader McCarthy plans to have a conversation with the Congresswoman about them.” It is not clear when that conversation may happen. McCarthy plans to fly to Florida on Thursday to meet with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

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But Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in an interview said McCarthy was effectively condoning this type of behavior.

“Kevin McCarthy answers to these QAnon members of Congress, not the other way around,” Ocasio-Cortez told MSNBC. “When I hear that Representative McCarthy is going to pull a member aside that has made white supremacist-sympathizing comments, the thing I think is, what is he going to tell them, ‘keep it up’? Because there are no consequences in the Republican caucus for violence.”

Mass. Representative Jake Auchincloss echoed his colleagues’ sentiments: “Words have consequences. [Greene] should resign. If she doesn’t, Congress needs to expel her. If you don’t understand that calling for the murder of political rivals is a threat to democracy, you shouldn’t be allowed to represent one.”


Greene’s situation is somewhat reminiscent of former Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who was stripped of all his committee assignments by his own party’s House leadership after expressing support for white supremacists in 2019. National GOP groups shunned King in the party’s Iowa primary and he was defeated, but he steadfastly maintained that he was adhering to his constituents’ beliefs more than most of the rest of his party.

Greene was named this week to the House Education and Labor Committee. There was no immediate word on whether she will face a similar sanction as King.

Since winning her congressional seat, Greene has sought to capitalize on her growing national notoriety with conservatives, spending more than $206,000 to lure in new donors through Parler, a social media site favored by Trump supporters and right-wing extremists.

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The site was effectively booted from the internet following the mayhem at the Capitol after Amazon, which hosted the site, decided Parler wasn’t doing enough to police users who incited violence. Before its removal, Greene’s spending super-charged her presence on Parler, with some of her posts reaching millions of users, according to an analysis of data by The Associated Press.

Greene has frequently attacked Democrats and railed against coronavirus pandemic safety measures, like mask-wearing. Greene also called on Congress to overturn the results of Biden’s election.

“I’m tired of seeing weak-kneed Republicans play defense. I will go on the attack,” Greene said in a Nov. 18 post. “It’s our 1776 moment!” she posted the day before the mob overran the Capitol.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Brittany Bowker can be reached at brittany.bowker@globe.com. Follower her on Twitter @brittbowker.

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