Rep. Cori Bush Moving Office For ‘Safety’ After Nasty Run-In With Marjorie Taylor Greene

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) is moving her office for the “safety” of her staff and herself after a tense encounter at the U.S. Capitol with QAnon-backing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.).

“A maskless Marjorie Taylor Greene & her staff berated me in a hallway” in a Jan. 13 incident, the Black freshman lawmaker tweeted Friday. “She targeted me & others on social media. I’m moving my office away from hers for my team’s safety.”

Bush has sponsored a bill calling for an investigation into House members to determine if they violated their oath of office with actions to overturn the presidential election. If so, the bill calls for expulsion or other sanctions. Greene, also a freshman, would be among those investigated.

Bush’s office has been “reassigned” at her request by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “This room assignment change was by the direct order of the speaker,” a Pelosi aide told NBC.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Joy Reid later on Friday, Bush said she was not “scared” of Greene. But Bush said she decided to move her office so she would not need to constantly wonder “if a white supremacist” is “conspiring against us.”

She described the encounter with Greene as “unbelievable,” adding that she has “never been in a work environment like this before.”

Safety has become a top concern at the Capitol following the Jan. 6 attack on the building by supporters of then-President Donald Trump ― an assault that resulted in five deaths, including that of a Capitol police officer.

Adding to the tension has been the resurfacing of social media posts in which Greene “liked” posts by others that suggested executing Pelosi, FBI agents and others.

Greene on Friday denied Bush’s account of their encounter, saying it was the Missouri lawmaker who berated her. She tweeted a closeup video of herself walking, apparently in a Capitol hallway, as she bashed Democrats and Black Lives Matter protesters. She then shouted at someone who told her to put on a mask. “You know what?” she yelled. “You shouldn’t bring COVID-positive members in here, spreading COVID everywhere.” 

The other person could not be seen on the tape — only Greene’s head was in the frame — but she said she was talking to a Democratic colleague. “That’s how it is in America now,” she complained in the video. Greene boasted later in her tweet that she had “the receipts” proving the truth of her dealing with Bush.

She lied in her tweeted video that Bush was the “leader” of the Black Lives Matter “terrorist mob” who “trespassed” into a gated St. Louis neighborhood to “threaten” the lives of Mark and Patricia McCloskey. In fact, the McCloskeys ended up being charged with felony illegal weapons possession and tampering with evidence. Mark McCloskey was photographed brandishing an AR-15 rifle at peaceful demonstrators, while his wife was filmed with her finger on the trigger of a semi-automatic handgun.

As she sought her House seat in northwest Georgia last year, Greene attracted national attention as an advocate of the ludicrous QAnon movement that, among other false conspiracy theories, asserts that various Democratic leaders and powerful people in Hollywood are engaged in a child trafficking ring and worship Satan.

Since she took office, an array of her past videos and social media posts have shrouded Greene in controversy ― and sparked widespread ridicule and contempt. In the past, she opined that a solar laser was used to spark a 2018 California wildfire for political reasons, that the 9/11 terror attack was a hoax, and that mass shootings in Las Vegas, at the high school in Parkland, Florida, and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut were “false flag” attacks aimed at building support for gun control measures.

In yet another unearthed video from 2018 reported by The New York Times Friday night, Greene asserted that former President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton were behind the death of John Kennedy Jr. in a 1999 plane crash and that former President Barack Obama was secretly a Muslim.

Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) earlier this week announced he was introducing legislation to expel Taylor Greene from Congress, citing her calls for violence against political figures.

Jewish groups on Friday joined the call for her ouster. Greene implied in since-removed Facebook posts that a banking concern run by the Rothschilds, a wealthy Jewish family frequently targeted in anti-Semitic attacks, somehow profited from the devastating California fire she blamed on a solar laser. That echoes a quintessential, virulently anti-Semitic attack that an international crew of conspiring Jewish financiers are to blame for global ills.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is a bigoted conspiracy theorist, and her rhetoric and actions are a grave and growing danger to the Jewish community and the American people,” Halie Soifer, chief executive of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in a statement.

Joel Rubin, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, told Newsweek that Greene’s crackpot beliefs and comments present “an immediate danger.” 

“Her incendiary statements about Jews, gun violence victims, and what appears to be an unending stream of bizarre conspiracy theories are hate-filled, intolerable, and run contrary to her oath of office,” he said. “This extremist-turned-congresswoman doesn’t deserve another day in the distinguished office she holds after repeatedly espousing hateful and bigoted rhetoric, threatening her congressional colleagues and student activists, and supporting the January 6 insurrection.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition issued a statement Friday saying that it is “offended and appalled” by Greene’s “comments and her actions.” The statement insisted Greene’s positions were “outside the mainstream” of the party.

“We opposed her as a candidate and we continue to oppose her now,” the statement added … the RJC is working closely with the House Republican leadership regarding next steps in this matter.”

Soifer responded that while the RJC didn’t back Greene, the coalition did support the Trumpism that gave rise to and encouraged Greene and others like her who promote positions linked to white supremacy.

With a few exceptions, Republican lawmakers have been largely silent on Greene. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has been criticized for treating her like a run-of-the-mill lawmaker and signing off on committee assignments for her, including on the chamber’s Education panel.