A legal effort to ban Marjorie Taylor Greene from standing for re-election has been given the go-ahead by a federal judge, who denied the far-right Georgia congresswoman’s attempt to have the case against her thrown out – paving the way for further proceedings by the end of this week.
The news led Ms Taylor Greene to complain that “I have to go to court on Friday and actually be questioned about something I’ve never been charged with and something I was completely against.”
Ms Greene, a hardline pro-Trump Republican who has long circulated false conspiracy theories, is accused by campaigners of violating a clause in the post-Civil War 14th amendment that bars anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the constitution from holding public office at state or federal level.
A similar effort against North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn was blocked by a Trump-appointed judge.
Ms Greene insists she did not participate in or help plan the 6 January attack on the US Capitol, but she has repeatedly defended people arrested and charged for taking part in it and has also helped spread false claims about what happened on the day – part of a pattern of behaviour that includes calling for violence against Democrats.
Her challenge to the case seeking to bar her from re-election was premised on the difficulty of resolving the case before Georgia holds its congressional primaries on 24 May, and on the claim that her chances of prevailing in the lawsuit were overwhelming. However, that claim was dismissed by the judge in the case, meaning a state judge will hear the case at the end of this week.
Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show last night, the congresswoman laid into the case against her, claiming that “progressives” are machinating to “rip my name off the ballot”.
“They’ve hired up some attorneys from New York who hate the people in my district and don’t believe that they should have the right to elect who they want to send to Washington, which is me.”
For his part, Mr Carlson dismissed the effort as anti-democratic.
“American citizens have an absolute right to vote for anyone they want to because it's their government, it's self-government, and if you take that away it's tyranny, obviously.”
One of Ms Greene’s most recent brushes with controversy came when she appeared at the America First Political Action Conference, an event hosted by out-and-out white nationalist and which featured various racist speakers and groups. She was not formally sanctioned for speaking at the conference by the House GOP leadership.
The congresswoman has raised huge sums of money for her re-election campaign, in which – assuming she is allowed to stand – she is overwhelmingly favoured for re-election.
