WASHINGTON — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) spoke with reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday about the vote to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Omar is the only African-born person on the subcommittee for African relations. Republicans are attacking her for comments she made in early 2019 when she first came to Congress. Omar has since apologized and met with Jewish leaders to better understand why her comments were offensive. The House voted on a condemnation of Omar's comments.
One of them was in 2012 when she condemned Israel for the attacks on the West Bank. Another came in 2018 when she said that drawing attention to the actions by the government isn't about hating the people who live there. But it was the 2019 statements in which she said that Jewish power was all about the money that drew criticism from her own party.
"No, no, no, there's no hypocrisy," Greene told Raw Story. "They removed me from all committees. We just voted to remove her from one committee and she can serve on any of the other ones. That's not hypocritical. That's a big difference."
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Unlike Greene, Omar hasn't spoken at a conference that welcomes neo-Nazis and white supremacists. She said that she didn't know about the political leanings of the group she spoke to. In 2018, Greene “speculated” that the wildfires that were tearing through California had been started by space-based lasers that were launched by the Rothschilds banking family, who are Jewish. She claimed it was a scheme to try and destroy California land and homes so that the family could buy it cheaper. Comments about the Rothschild family are often coded commentary about Jewish people and money.
In 2022, Greene hired infamous activist Milo Yiannopoulos, who has a history of anti-Semitism, to serve as an unpaid intern in the government office.
“We’re done putting Jewish interests first,” Yiannopoulos said while serving as spokesperson for Kanye West. The group had just come from a meeting with Donald Trump. “It’s time we put Jesus Christ first again in this country. Nothing and no one is going to get in our way to make that happen.”
Greene has also compared President Joe Biden to Hitler and in 2021 she characterized wearing masks during the COVID-19 crisis to the Holocaust, which killed 6 million Jews.
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It's unclear how long the statute of limitations lasts on comments that Republicans find objectionable enough to have someone removed from their committee assignments.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), for example, (R-AZ), for example, has been a strong defender of Fuentes and also spoke at his America First events, which the Anti-Defamation League called a white supremacist gathering. He currently serves on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
At the same time, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has made consistently anti-Muslim remarks with no consequences.
Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) cited a slate of Jewish leaders like George Soros, Mike Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, saying that they "bought" the Democratic Party. It was something Roll Call reported as an "anti-Semitic dog whistle."
“One of the most popular unfortunately antisemitic tropes is the idea that Jews are pulling the strings,” Roll Call cited Rabbi Jill Jacobs, who serves as the executive director of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.
“People aren’t expected to know everything about antisemitism, but when something gets called out the right response is, ‘Thank you for letting me know. I didn’t know that. I won’t do that again.’ We have not seen that from McCarthy and others. We have just seen deflecting and rejecting," she also said.
One of the top GOP leaders, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) ran Facebook ads promoting the so-called "great replacement theory." It's a far-right idea claiming Democrats want to "replace" white people with immigrants or people of color to create a "liberal majority."
“When you look at white nationalist online chatter, it’s very much all about this supposed Jewish plot. We saw it in the person who murdered Jews in a synagogue in Pittsburgh,” Jacobs also told Roll Call, citing the 2018 antisemitic terrorist attack at the Tree of Life synagogue. “His rationale was that Jews were bringing in refugees to destroy America.”
Republicans haven't indicated where the line exists for these comments and whether it will be applied beyond the Democrats they seek to remove. It's also unclear how long Omar will remain in the legislative "penalty box."
Greene currently serves on the House Homeland Security Committee after not being on committees for two years.
With additional reporting by Matt Laslo
