WASHINGTON – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, reprimanded Republican leaders Thursday for refusing to rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., To deprive her of her committee appointments before a vote in the House led by the Democrats to do so.
“I remain deeply concerned about the acceptance of the leadership of House Republics by extreme conspiracy theorists,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference. ‘It is particularly disturbing that they are eager to reward a fan of QAnon, a 9/11 observer, a harasser of child survivors of the school. shooting. ”
“You would think that the Republican leadership in Congress would have some responsibility towards this institution,” she said, referring to the decision of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy not to punish Greene.
The remarks come as the House prepares Thursday afternoon to vote on Greene’s removal from the Budget and Education and Labor Committees, a proposal the Democratic majority chose to pursue after the House’s Republican leadership chose not to to act against Greene.
“For some reason, they chose not to go down the road, even though Leader Hoyer gave Leader McCarthy sufficient notice that this would be a path we would follow,” Pelosi told the news conference.
Before the vote, Greene spoke on the House floor for about ten minutes. She did not specifically apologize for her comments, but said that it does represent her or her values and that “absolutely what I regret” is believing things that were not true after she discovered QAnon.
“This is what I ran for Congress,” Greene said. ‘I never once said QAnon during my entire campaign. I never said any of the things I am accused of today during my campaign. I have never said any of these things since I was elected to Congress. These were words of the past. And these things do not represent me. They do not represent my district. And it does not represent my values. ‘
House Republicans decided at a four-hour closed-door meeting Wednesday night not to punish Greene after Democrats protested her appointment to the education panel.
Greene, a first-year student, came under fire for expressing support for the QAnon conspiracy theory. He highlighted the calls for violence against top Democrats and suggested that the Sandy Hook and Parkland shootings took place.
According to sources in the room, Greene tried to explain her previous views and comments at Wednesday night’s meeting and said she did not believe in QAnon and understood that the shootings took place, one of the sources said.
However, the Republican of Georgia did not publicly apologize.
McCarthy, R-California, questioned the Democrats’ pursuit of the resolution Thursday and asked why certain Democrats who criticized the Republicans are still members of the committees.
“Never in the history of Congress have people decided where other parties place people on committees,” he said after the meeting.
Leigh Ann Caldwell contributed.