School Shooting Truther Marjorie Taylor Greene Was Just Named to the Education Committee

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has one word for the GOP plan to put a QAnon conspiracy theorist on the committee overseeing U.S. education: “appalling.”

Top Democrats expressed outrage on Thursday over the GOP’s appointment of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to the House Education and Labor Committee, after Greene dismissed deadly school shootings as “false flag” operations and embraced other totally bonkers elements of the unhinged QAnon movement. 

“What could they be thinking, or is thinking too generous a word about what they might be doing?,” Pelosi asked rhetorically on Thursday. “Assigning her to the education committee when she has mocked the killing of little children at Sandy Hook Elementary school. When she has mocked the killing of teenagers in high school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.”

In a clip filmed in March 2019, Greene followed one of the survivors of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school shooting around Capitol Hill. She called him a “coward,” demanded to know how he got meetings with members of Congress, and insisted that gun control wouldn’t work. 

In another instance, Greene reportedly expressed enthusiastic support online for the idea that the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school, in which 17 people died, was staged. “Exactly!,” she responded, according to a screenshot posted by MediaMatters.  

Pelosi was hardly alone on Thursday in her outrage over Greene’s appointment to the education committee. 

Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the Democrat who chairs the Education and Labor Committee, likewise declared himself aghast. 

“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,” Scott said in a statement Thursday. “Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy must explain how someone with this background represents the Republican party on education issues.”

Greene, in response, tried to play it cool.  

“Congresswoman Greene is excited to join the House Education and Labor Committee,” her office said in a statement Thursday to the Washington Post. “Rep. Greene is ready to get to work to reopen every school in America, expand school choice, protect homeschooling, champion religious freedom for student and teachers, and prevent men and boys from unfairly competing with women and girls in sports.”

On Tuesday, Greene had tweeted that she was “very excited” to be joining the committee. 

But elsewhere, she appeared to be doing some cleanup work of her social media presence. 

A screen-grab of her Twitter feed by CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski on Thursday indicated the controversial congresswoman had deleted 19 tweets in the previous 12 hours. 

Disbelieving school shootings is hardly the only loony idea Greene has controversially supported.

She’s also written favorably about the unhinged “frazzledrip” conspiracy, which supposes the existence of a video showing Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide, raping and mutilating a young girl. 

There is absolutely no evidence that such a video exists, but Greene has posted encouraging remarks about the idea on social media.