Marjorie Taylor Greene Claims Removal From Committees Means She's 'Been Freed'

Controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claimed in a news conference Friday she has "been freed" in the wake of Thursday's mildly bipartisan decision by the House of Representatives to remove her from her committee assignments.

Greene, a Georgia Republican, was removed Thursday from the House Budget and House Education and Labor committees by a 230-199 vote in the wake of damaging social media commentary extolling her support for various conspiracy theories, including a claim that deadly 2018 wildfires in California were caused by lasers orbiting the planet.

"If I was on a committee, I'd be wasting my time, because my conservative values wouldn't be heard and neither would my district's," Greene said, Politico reports.

"Now, I have a lot of free time on my hands, which means I can talk to a whole lot more people all over this country and I can talk to more people and make connections and build a huge amount of support."

It is not entirely clear how talking to people from all over the U.S. will help her serve her constituents from northwest Georgia's 14th Congressional district. Greene was for all intents and purposes unopposed in the November general election, receiving 75% of the vote compared to 25% for Democrat Keith Van Ausdal, who had withdrawn from the race.

Those percentages are, however, in line with how the district has voted over the past decade, with Republican Tom Graves winning the first of his four terms in Congress in 2012 by a 73% to 27% margin. Graves was unopposed in both 2014 and 2016 and in 2018 defeated challenger Steven Lamar Foster by a margin of 77% to 23%.

One of the most controversial freshmen members in the 117th Congress, Greene spent little time talking about the committee assignments and focused more on bouncing back and forth between extolling her faith and attacking the media and Democrats.

While she talked of being repentant, Greene attacked the media for "addicting our nation to hate" while also accusing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, of lying about her account of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Thursday's vote was the culmination of a furor that blew up last week after CNN reported on Greene's Facebook activity in 2018 and 2019 in which appeared she supported the idea of executing prominent Democrats in Congress, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as the notion of killing FBI agents working against then-President Donald Trump.

Greene claimed she has had "teams of people" managing her social media presence. But her Facebook page included a speech accusing Pelosi of being "guilty of treason."

"And it's, uh, it's a crime punishable by death is what treason is," Greene said on the video. "Nancy Pelosi is guilty of treason."

Greene has also harassed survivors of the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla., and repeatedly referring to the incident being staged by actors.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy opted Wednesday not to remove Greene from her pair of committee assignments before House Democrats made good Thursday on their threat to act on the matter.

Greene clapped back at the 11 Republican members that voted with the Democratic majority, criticizing the group's "big betrayal."