‘I Tore ‘Em to Pieces’: MTG Boasts of Furious Conduct During Twitter, Balloon Committee Hearings
© AFP 2023 / DUSTIN CHAMBERS
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Controversial right-wing lawmaker US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) let loose on the unfortunate witnesses called to two committee meetings on Thursday, furiously denouncing them for adopting policies with which she disagreed.
Greene, who won her reelection bid in November 2022, also received her first committee assignments in two years, thanks to the new Republican majority in the House. She was appointed to the Oversight Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, both of which held hearings on Thursday.
When it came her turn to question the witnesses, she used her time to give them a piece of her mind.
‘I’m So Glad You Lost Your Jobs’
“You can consider your speech canceled during my time because you canceled mine,” Greene told a group of former Twitter executives called to testify on Wednesday in response to the Twitter Files information releases by the social media company’s new leadership.
“You see, you permanently banned my personal Twitter account and it was my campaign account also, so let’s talk about election interference, shall we?” she said.
Twitter BANNED and CENSORED me, the President of the United States, and countless conservative Americans.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) February 8, 2023
Twitter interfered in our elections and they broke the law! pic.twitter.com/yq8YganAuV
Greene’s personal account was banned by Twitter on January 2, 2022, for repeated violations of the company’s COVID-19 misinformation policy. It was reinstated on November 21 of that year, alongside other banned right-wing accounts also reinstated by Elon Musk, Twitter’s new CEO. Greene’s professional account connected to her office was not affected by the ban.
“You know, at your former company - or your former company, where you worked - Twitter employees, over 98% of them, donate to Democrats. So while you coordinated with DHS, the FBI, the CIA, our government, and outside groups, to permanently ban, shadowban, conservative Americans and candidates like me and the former president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, you were censoring and wrongfully violating our First Amendment free speech rights,” Greene continued.
10 January 2023, 22:27 GMT
“Guess what? None of you hold security clearances, none of you are elected, and none of you represent 750,000 people like I do. Let’s explain,” she said, going on to cite US law code banning persons from intimidating others into not voting or voting a certain way. “You didn’t shadowban or permanently ban my Democrat opponent - no, you did that to me, and that was wrong and it was against the law.”
“I’m so glad that you’re censored now and I’m so glad that you lost your jobs,” she continued. “Thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter.”
‘I Chewed Them Out’
However, Greene’s reign of terror was just getting started. At a classified briefing the next day about the alleged Chinese spy balloon that was shot down off the South Carolina coast last weekend, Greene tore into the Pentagon officials called to testify.
“I had to wait in line the whole time. I was I think the second to last person, and I chewed them out just like the American people would’ve,” Greene told a US media outlet about the meeting, which was closed to the press. “I tore ‘em to pieces.”
4 February 2023, 19:01 GMT
“I said ‘the president may be a Democrat, but he’s still the president of the United States, and they made him look like a fool and made him look weak the week before the State of the Union’ - I’ve said that publicly, too - by not shooting it down,” Greene said. “And I said there was nothing I heard there today that gave me any confidence in what they did.”
“They tried to give me some more excuses and I said, ‘I don’t want to hear more of your excuses,’” Greene added, when asked about the reactions of fellow lawmakers to her remarks.
“He said, ‘well it’s a matter of opinion.’ I said ‘no, you’re nothing but excuses and it’s wrong and I’m just telling you, this is how the American people see it and it’s a serious problem.’”
Another lawmaker who was also in the hearing confirmed Greene’s claims, telling US media, “When she got to ask questions, she was yelling out saying ‘b*llsh*t,’ and, you know, ‘I don’t believe you.’”
10 February 2022, 01:42 GMT
“Just screaming and yelling, irrational in my estimation,” the lawmaker said.
Another said “there were people muttering on the side” during other lawmakers’ questioning of the witnesses.
This came after US President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday, during which Greene repeatedly screamed at Biden, calling him a “liar” amid a furious uproar by congressional Republicans after Biden accused some of them of seeking to defund Medicare and Social Security. Biden deftly used the moment to get conservatives to promise on national television not to push such cuts as part of the debt ceiling negotiations.
