In November, Marjorie Taylor Greene became the first open QAnon supporter to be elected to Congress. Over the years, Greene has openly embraced and spread the kind of gruesome and hateful conspiracy theories that might once have relegated her to the sidelines of the national discourse: She advanced baseless claims about voter fraud during the 2020 election, has referred to multiple mass shootings as “false flag operations,” has shared her racist, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic views online, and has shown support on Facebook for executing prominent Democratic politicians.
But under the leadership of the Trump administration, which empowered the most paranoid and conspiracy-minded of the country’s right wing, Greene’s vile positions earned her enough support to get elected to represent Georgia’s 14th District in the House of Representatives, where she has been assigned to the Education and Labor Committee. After her election, Trump called her a “future Republican Star” who was “strong on everything and never gives up — a real WINNER!”
This week, a video went viral that shows Greene, in March 2019, harassing Parkland shooting survivor and gun-control activist David Hogg as he walks toward the U.S. Capitol. In the video, Greene follows behind Hogg, making false claims about gun laws and the Parkland shooting. The 18-year-old ignores her. When she finally stops following him, she calls Hogg a “coward” and falsely claims that he receives funding from billionaire George Soros (a common element of far-right conspiracy theories). Greene has also previously called Hogg “#littleHitler.”
The video — along with new CNN reports about Greene’s troubling social-media activity prior to her election — has prompted many Democrats and a few Republicans to call for Greene’s resignation, though GOP leadership has yet to act in any meaningful way. Greene, for her part, did not apologize or walk back her claims, saying that at the time of the video she was “going from office to office in the Senate to oppose the radical gun control agenda that David Hogg was pushing.”
The video is just the latest example of the loathsome conduct of a woman now tasked with helping shape education and labor policy in the U.S. Below, examples of some of Greene’s most troubling behavior.
She is a QAnon believer.
QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory that began to spread in 2017, when an entity called Q, who claimed to be a high-placed, anonymous government insider, began posting on internet message boards. Its supporters believe Trump is fighting against “deep state” operators who worship Satan and run child sex-trafficking rings. The FBI has said that QAnon believers represent a domestic terrorism threat, and supporters of the conspiracy have been linked to numerous acts of violence.
As the Washington Post reports, in a 2017 YouTube video that has since been made private, Greene says that “Q is a patriot. He is someone that very much loves his country, and he’s on the same page as us, and he is very pro-Trump.”
She goes on to say, “I’m very excited about that now there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it.”
She reportedly has claimed that mass shootings are “false flag operations.”
In 2018, Greene agreed with a comment on Facebook claiming that the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 people dead, was a “false flag” event — an incident that is planned or faked by someone other than the actual perpetrator in order to achieve their own goals; in this case, to take away people’s guns.
The comment, which was uncovered by the website Media Matters and has since been deleted, was posted in response to a story Greene shared about the retirement pension of disgraced Broward County sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson. “It’s called a pay-off to keep his mouth shut since it was a false flag planned shooting,” a Facebook user wrote. “Exactly,” replied Greene.
Media Matters also reported that in a separate 2018 post on Facebook, Greene wrote: “I am told that Nancy Pelosi tells Hillary Clinton several times a month that ‘we need another school shooting’ in order to persuade the public to want strict gun control.”
On Wednesday, after the video of Greene harassing Hogg went viral, Linda Beigel Schulman and Michael Schulman, parents of Scott J. Beigel, one of the teachers who died during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, addressed Greene’s statements and the pain her claims have caused to them and other families who lost loved ones in the Parkland shooting. “Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, the shooting where my son was murdered protecting his students was not a ‘false flag,’” they told New York’s Olivia Nuzzi.
“What do we need to do?” Linda went on to ask. “Show her the video? Do I need to take her over to Scott’s mausoleum? Does she need to see how he was shot six times from three feet away?”
She has shown support for calls for violence on social media.
According to a CNN report published this week, Greene repeatedly showed her support on Facebook for calls to execute prominent Democratic politicians. In addition to posting baseless far-right conspiracies herself, Greene liked a number of her supporters’ violent comments, like one from January 2019 that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove Nancy Pelosi from office. In response to an April 2018 comment from a user who said, “Now do we get to hang them ?? Meaning H[illary Clinton] & O[bama] ???” Greene reportedly replied, “Stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off.”
In January 2019, Greene also launched a White House petition to remove House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from office for crimes of treason and suggested Pelosi should be put to death. In a Facebook Live broadcast from inside Pelosi’s office, Greene reportedly said that the speaker will “suffer death or she’ll be in prison” for her “treason.” She also later liked a comment on Facebook about Pelosi that said, “Through removal or death, doesn’t matter, as long as she goes.”
On Twitter, Greene called the CNN report a “hit piece” but did not deny that any of the likes and replies were real. Instead, she said, “Over the years, I’ve had teams of people manage my pages. Many posts have been liked. Many posts have been shared. Some did not represent my views. Especially the ones that CNN is about to spread across the internet.”
And what’s this about a space laser?
The latest of Greene’s wild conspiracies theories to be unearthed is one she shared on Facebook in 2018. According to a new report from Media Matters, in a since-deleted post, Greene suggested that the 2018 Camp Fire, one of the worst wildfires in California’s history, was the result of a nefarious plan by … PG&E, the Rothschilds, and Governor Jerry Brown to … use a space laser to … clear out land to make room for a high-speed rail project. Yeah, I don’t know. See the full post yourself here.
While some Republicans — like representative Adam Kinzinger — have condemned Greene’s actions, most members of her own party have remained silent.
This post has been updated.