House Democrats on Thursday voted to strip Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) of her committee assignments after arguing that her past support of QAnon disqualified her from holding them.
Lawmakers voted 230-199 to remove Greene from the House education and budget committees, with 11 Republicans joining the Democrats, after the GOP declined to take action themselves, according to The Hill.
House votes 230-199 to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments.
11 Republicans vote yes:
Carlos Gimenez
Mark Jacobs
John Katko
Young Kim
Adam Kinzinger
Nicole Malliotakis
Maria Elvira Salazar
Mario Diaz-Balart
Chris Smith
Fred Upton
Brian Fitzpatrick pic.twitter.com/GWb64PTmPh— The Recount (@therecount) February 4, 2021
The vote came after members of both parties gave impassioned speeches for or against removing Greene – with much of the GOP stepping up to her defense, while at the same time condemning her past comments.
Some Republicans warned Democrats that they were setting a dangerous precedent.
“I think you are, frankly, overlooking the unprecedented nature of the acts that you’ve decided upon, and where that may lead us when the majority changes,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), the senior Republican member of the Rules Committee.
On Wednesday night, Greene received a standing ovation during a closed-door GOP conference meeting, where she apologized for embracing QAnon. Then on Thursday, Greene said in a House floor speech that she had recently ‘realized the dangers’ of such narratives.
Greene described how she’d “stumbled across” QAnon in late 2017 and began posting about it on Facebook while she was “upset about things and didn’t trust the government.”
Later in 2018, Greene said, “when I started finding misinformation, lies, things that were not true in these QAnon posts, I stopped believing it.”
Greene also disavowed her previous support for several conspiracy theories, declaring a belief that school shootings are “absolutely real” and that 9/11 “absolutely happened.”
But as Greene concluded her speech, she adopted a more defiant tone, blasting unnamed Democrats for what she suggested was their encouragement of the violence that, at times, accompanied last year’s national protests against police brutality. –The Hill
“If this Congress is to tolerate members that condone riots that have hurt American people, attack police officers, occupy federal property, burn businesses and cities, but yet wants to condemn me and crucify me in the public square for words that I said, and I regret, a few years ago, then I think we’re in a real big problem,” she said, before criticizing the MSM.
“Will we allow the media, that is just as guilty as QAnon of presenting truth and lies, to divide us?” Greene asked, drawing sharp rebuke from House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-MA) who called the comparison “beyond the pale.”
Yet, at the end of the day, Greene’s defense wasn’t enough to overcome the Democrats and 11 Republicans who decided to punched right over a colleague’s past.