Freshman Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush is changing her position to distance herself from Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, she tweeted on Friday. Bush said his colleague “threatened” and “scolded” both her and her team.
Greene was widely condemned by many House Democrats, as he promoted a number of conspiracy theories and agreed with statements that Democrats should be executed. A House Democrat said he plans to file a motion as early as next week to expel her from the chamber.
Bush initially tweeted that she was relocating because of Greene’s behavior on Friday. In a subsequent statement, Bush described an incident on January 13 in the tunnel between the Cannon House office building and the Capitol, when she said that Greene “came up behind me, talking loudly on his phone without wearing a mask”. The previous day, several Democrats announced that they had tested positive for COVID-19 after being confined to Republican members who refused to wear masks during the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill.
“Out of concern for the health of my team, other members of Congress and their congressional staff, I repeatedly asked her to put on a mask. Taylor Greene and her team responded by rebuking me, with an employee shouting, ‘Stop inciting violence with Black Lives Matter ‘, “Bush continued. Greene also” attacked “Bush on Twitter on the day of Martin Luther King Jr., Bush said,” to falsely accuse me of leading a crowd that called for’ rape, murder and arson. home ‘”of the McCloskey family in St. Louis – thus naming me as a target for their hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers.”
“All of this led to my decision to move my Taylor Greene office to the security of my team. My office is being relocated from the Longworth House Office Building,” said Bush. An aide to mayor Nancy Pelosi confirmed to CBS News that the change in the designation of the room was under the direct order of the mayor, at Bush’s request.
Greene posted a video on Twitter Friday afternoon defying Bush’s claim. The video shows Greene walking through the tunnels under the Capitol when someone, supposedly Bush, yells at her to follow the rules and wear a mask. In the tweet, Greene says Bush is the “leader of the St. Louis terrorist mafia Black Lives Matter” who “is lying to you” and “scolded me”.
Since taking the oath earlier this month, Greene has received criticism from his colleagues in Congress. Californian Democrat Jimmy Gomez is due to present his resolution to expel Greene from the House of Representatives next Tuesday.
In a statement on Wednesday night announcing his plan, Gomez cited Green’s amplification of conspiracy theories related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, as well as his previous support for social media posts calling for violence against Pelosi and other Democratic politicians. Gomez’s plea for Greene’s resignation was echoed by the parents of some of the students who were killed during the 2018 shooting in Parkland, Florida. On Thursday, CNN reported the existence of a 2019 video in which Greene is photographed harassing teenager David Hogg, a survivor of the shooting.
Connecticut Democrat Jahana Hayes – who represents the district where Newtown, the site of another school shooting, is located – sent a letter the Republican leadership of the House and the main Republican on the House Education and Work Committee, Deputy Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, to remove Greene from his new assignment to that committee.
Media Matters for America reported on Thursday that Greene wrote a Facebook post in 2018 with the anti-Semitic claim that a space laser controlled by a nefarious group had caused California forest fires.
However, a spokesman for Greene told CBS News that she will not resign.
“They are coming after me because I am a threat to their goal of socialism. They are coming after me because they know that I represent the people, not the politicians. They are coming after me because, as President Trump, I will always defend conservative values. They want to take me out because I represent the people. And they hate it, “Greene said in a statement.