Freshman Democratic Congressman Cori Bush is moving her office to distance himself from GOP congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene, she tweeted Friday. Bush said her colleague “threatened” and “denounced” both her and her staff.
Greene has been widely condemned by many House Democrats for promoting numerous conspiracy theories and agreeing with statements that Democrats should be executed. A House Democrat says he plans to file a motion as early as next week to evict her.
Bush initially tweeted that she moved her office Friday because of Greene’s behavior. In a later statement, Bush described an incident in the tunnel between the Cannon House Office Building and the Capitol on Jan. 13 when she said Greene “came up from behind me, ranting loudly into her phone without wearing a mask.” The day before, several Democrats had announced they had tested positive for COVID-19 after shutting down with Republican members refusing to wear masks during the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
“Out of concern for the health of my staff, other members of Congress and their convention staff, I repeatedly called for her to put on a mask. Taylor Greene and her staff responded by calling me names, with an employee shouting, ‘ Stop inciting violence with Black Lives Matter, “Bush continued. Greene also lashed out” at Bush on Twitter on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Bush said, “for falsely accusing me of leading a mob that called out. to ‘the rape, murder and burning of the house’ ” of the McCloskey family in St. Louis – thus targeting me as the target of its hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers. “
“All of this led to my decision to move my office away from Taylor Greene’s for the safety of my team. My office is currently being relocated from the Longworth House Office Building,” Bush said. An assistant to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed to CBS News that the change to the chamber assignment was done directly by the speaker at Bush’s request.
Bush later tweeted that she has not moved her office ‘for fear’.
“I’ve moved my office because I work here for the people of St. Louis,” she wrote. “What I can’t do is keep looking over my shoulder and wondering if a white supremacist in Congress is conspiring against me and my team.”
Placed Greene a video on Twitter Friday afternoon disputed Bush’s claim. The video shows Greene walking through the tunnels under the Capitol when someone, supposedly Bush, calls out to her to follow the rules and wear a mask. In the tweet, Greene says Bush is the “leader of the St. Louis Black Lives Matter terrorist gang” who “lies to you” and “calls me names.”
Since she was sworn in earlier this month, Greene has received pressure from her colleagues in Congress. California Democrat Jimmy Gomez is expected to file his resolution to expel Greene from the House of Representatives next Tuesday.
In a statement on Wednesday evening announcing his plan, Gomez cited Green’s reinforcement of conspiracy theories related to the September 11 terrorist attacks and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, as well as her previous support for social media posts calling for violence against Pelosi and other democratic politicians. Gomez’s call for Greene’s resignation is echoed by the parents of some of the students who died in the 2018 shooting in Parkland, Florida. On Thursday, CNN reported on its existence a 2019 video depicting Greene harassing teenage David Hogg, a survivor of the shooting.
Connecticut Democrat Jahana Hayes – representing the district where Newtown, the site of another school shooting, is located – sent a letter to the Republican leaders of the House and the most senior Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, to deprive Greene of her reassignment to that committee.
Media Matters for America reported Thursday that Greene had written a Facebook post in 2018 claiming that a laser from space controlled by a nefarious group had started wildfires in California.
However, a Greene spokesperson told CBS News that she has will not resign.
“They come after me because I am a threat to their cause of socialism. They come after me because they know that I represent the people, not the politicians. They come after me because, like President Trump, I always have the conservative values. They want to turn me off because I represent the people. And they absolutely hate it, “Greene said in a statement.