In an appearance on a far-right news channel this week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) minimized the gravity of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building — by suggesting the actions taken by a mob of loyalists to former President Donald Trump were somehow justified because of her skewed interpretation of the Declaration of Independence.
Her words, in addition to recent reports on her connections to those who attacked the Capitol, have renewed calls for her expulsion from Congress.
Earlier this week, Greene attempted to deflect from the Capitol attack by comparing the incident to uprisings for racial justice in response to police killings and brutality against people of color in the U.S. Racial justice uprisings were attacks “on innocent American people, whereas January 6th was just a riot at the Capitol,” Greene suggested while appearing on the right-wing streaming news channel Real America’s Voice.
“And if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants,” she added.
The historical document Greene cited says no such thing, as the colonists didn’t seek to overthrow King George III, but rather sought to start their own nation separate from Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence lays out a list of 27 grievances that American colonists had against the monarch, justifying their secession in the late 18th century.
Notably, the signers of the Declaration said their decision wasn’t made hastily, citing a “long train of abuses and usurpations” made by the king.
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes,” the Declaration of Independence states.
Greene’s deflection of the severity of the January 6 attack comes as reporting from Rolling Stone this week detailed how several Republican officials, including Greene, Representatives Paul Gosar (R-Arizona), Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), Mo Brooks (R-Alabama), Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina), Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), had allegedly aided Capitol attackers in their plans to breach the Capitol, with the goal of disrupting the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win over Trump. That report, citing several sources with knowledge of these lawmakers’ actions at that time, stated that they were “intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.”
In response to that report, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) called on Greene and the rest of her colleagues who were involved to be expelled from Congress.
“Any member of Congress who helped plot a terrorist attack on our nation’s capitol must be expelled,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “This was a terror attack. 138 injured, almost 10 dead. Those responsible remain a danger to our democracy, our country, and human life in the vicinity of our Capitol and beyond.”
Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) has also called for the lawmakers to be expelled, authoring a bill that would investigate lawmakers who attempted to block the certification of the election.
“My resolution to investigate and expel the members of Congress who helped incite the deadly insurrection on our Capitol is just waiting for a vote,” she said in a tweet on Monday.
Slowly, more Democrats are joining in on calls for the removal of Greene and other Trump loyalists. Following reports of Greene’s comments comparing the Capitol attack to the Declaration of Independence, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California) also called on her to be expelled from Congress.
“If you look at her recent statement, she’s basically saying that January 6 was ‘just a riot.’ It was more than that,” Lieu said. “People died.”
Greene “should not be in Congress if she is still disputing the results of the election, and [trying] to justify the violent attack on our Capitol,” Lieu added.
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