Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on House Republicans to remove freshman Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene from the Education and Labor Committee, citing her past comments dismissive of school-shooting victims.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat could they be thinking?\u201d Pelosi said of the Republican leaders on Thursday. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely appalling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pelosi criticized Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and other top GOP members for rewarding Greene with a role in overseeing education policy. Greene in the past has said that the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut was a hoax created to enable the government to infringe on gun-ownership rights.<\/p>\n
Pelosi\u2019s complaint was echoed by the Democratic leader of the Education panel.<\/p>\n
\u201cRepublicans have appointed someone to this committee who claimed that the killing of 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax,\u201d Education Committee Chairman Bobby Scott of Virginia said in a statement on Thursday. \u201cMcCarthy must explain how someone with this background represents the Republican party on education issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Georgia Republican has also disparaged students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed by a gunman in 2018. Her past comments on social media suggest support for executing Democrats, including Pelosi, CNN reported.<\/p>\n
Greene, in a statement from her office, said her previous comments were being distorted by the media.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemocrats and their spokesmen in the Fake News Media will stop at nothing to defeat conservative Republicans,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are coming after me because like President Trump, I will always defend conservative values. They want to take me out because I represent the people. And they absolutely hate it.\u201c<\/p>\n
Pelosi didn\u2019t answer a question about whether Greene should be expelled from Congress, something that would take a two-thirds vote of the House. Representative Jimmy Gomez, a California Democrat, introduced a resolution this week to expel her.<\/p>\n