'Appalling': Dems Incensed as GOP Appoints Marjorie Taylor Greene--a Sandy Hook Massacre Denier--to Education Committee

The Democratic chair of the House Education and Labor Committee on Thursday blasted the Republican leadership's decision to appoint Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to the key congressional panel, pointing to the freshman GOP lawmaker's history of peddling vile lies and conspiracy theories about recent school shootings which left dozens of students and teachers dead.

"House Republicans 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," Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) said in a statement, a rare rebuke of the minority party's appointments by a sitting committee chair. "House Republicans have appointed someone to this committee who claimed that the killing of 14 students and three teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was staged."

"House Republicans have appointed someone to this Committee who chased and berated a 17-year-old survivor of a mass school shooting, and then celebrated this behavior by posting it on social media."
--Rep. Bobby Scott"House Republicans have appointed someone to this Committee who chased and berated a 17-year-old survivor of a mass school shooting, and then celebrated this behavior by posting it on social media," Scott continued. "Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy must explain how someone with this background represents the Republican party on education issues. He is sending a clear message to students, parents, and educators about the views of the Republican Party."

Greene's appointment to the committee by the House GOP leadership was first reported by Education Week on Tuesday, the same day a CNNreview of the Georgia Republican's social media history revealed that prior to her election to Congress last November, Greene "repeatedly indicated support for executing prominent Democratic politicians," including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

During a press briefing on Thursday, Pelosi slammed House Republican leaders for assigning to the Education Committee a lawmaker who "mocked the killing of little children at Sandy Hook Elementary School" and "mocked the killing of teenagers in high school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas" in Parkland, Florida.

"What could they be thinking? Or is thinking too generous a word for what they might be doing?" said Pelosi. "It's absolutely appalling, and I think that the focus has to be on the Republican leadership of this House of Representatives for the disregard they have for the death of those children."

Last week, Media Mattersreported that Greene in 2018 "agreed with a Facebook commenter who claimed that 9/11 'was done by our own gov[ernment]' and that 'none of the school shootings were real or done by the ones who were supposedly arrested for them,' including the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School."

"Greene agreed in 2018 that the Parkland shooting was actually a false flag planned event," Media Matters reported. "She also wrote in a separate post that she had supposedly been '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, footage of Greene following and berating Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg in 2019 resurfaced and went viral, bolstering calls for the freshman Republican's expulsion from Congress.

In an appearance on CNN late Wednesday, Hogg--who said he "absolutely" remembers the 2019 incident--called on McCarthy to hold Greene accountable by, at the very least, stripping her of her committee assignments.

"Republicans always act as if they're the party of decency and respect," said Hogg. "But would the party of decency and respect question whether or not school shootings happened? Would they harass the survivors of these shootings for having different opinions than them? I don't think so. And if Kevin McCarthy doesn't think so either, he needs to actually stand up and do something about this congresswoman."

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