Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday claimed not to remember who she spoke to or what she said or did in the weeks between former president Donald Trump\u2019s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol during a court hearing which will determine whether she is eligible to appear on the ballot in Georgia this year. <\/p>\n
Ms Greene, who testified under oath in an administrative hearing as part of a lawsuit brought by Georgia voters who say she is ineligible to serve because she supported the pro-Trump mob that attacked Congress in hopes of preventing certification of Mr Biden\u2019s 2020 election victory, used the phrase \u201cI don\u2019t recall\u201d in excess of 50 times in response to a range of questions regarding her conduct and public statements during the run-up to the insurrection.<\/p>\n
At times, she claimed to have trouble recalling basic details about who was responsible for posts made to her now-suspended personal Twitter account and her Facebook account. <\/p>\n
The Peach State Republican also had to backtrack when she was asked if she\u2019d ever called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a \u201ctraitor\u201d to the United States.<\/p>\n
When attorney Andrew Celli asked her if she\u2019d ever made such a statement, she quickly shot back: \u201cNo, I haven\u2019t said that\u201d.<\/p>\n
But after he called for an exhibit to be presented, she quickly interjected: \u201cOh no, wait, hold on now!<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that by not securing the border that violates her oath of office,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Marjorie Taylor Greene asked if she believes Pelosi is \u2018traitor to the country\u2019<\/p>\n
Mr Celli proceeded to present a video of Ms Greene speaking at a 2019 event, in which she accused Ms Pelosi of being \u201cguilty of treason\u201d and called for her to receive the death penalty as a result, at which point she admitted having made such a statement. <\/p>\n
The seven-hour hearing took even more bizarre twists and turns over the course of Ms Greene\u2019s testimony, including one head-scratching moment in which Mr Celli asked her if she\u2019d lifted a phrase in one of her videos about the American people going \u201cquietly into the night\u201d from the 1996 film Independence Day, and followed up his question with a clip from the Roland Emmerich-directed blockbuster in which the US president, played by Bill Pullman, speaks to a group of fighter pilots who were preparing to fight back against an alien invasion. <\/p>\n
After that moment of levity, the questioning turned deadly serious once more, and Ms Greene\u2019s inability to remember basic details returned. <\/p>\n
When Ms Greene was asked whether she\u2019d discussed the possibility of then-president Donald Trump invoking martial law to prevent Mr Biden from being sworn in as president \u2014 a course of action advocated for by numerous high-profile Trump allies including attorney Sidney Powell and ex-White House national security adviser Michael Flynn \u2014 Ms Greene\u2019s attorney, James Bopp Jr, attempted to claim that she could not answer the question because such an answer would violate Mr Trump\u2019s executive privilege, though the objection was quickly overruled. <\/p>\n
Marjorie Taylor Greene denies wanting to stop Biden’s certification<\/p>\n
Still, her answer to nearly every question remained the same: \u201cI don\u2019t recall\u201d.<\/p>\n
In closing arguments, Mr Celli said Ms Greene\u2019s repeated references in public statements and social media to \u201c1776\u201d \u2014 the beginning of America\u2019s war of independence against Great Britain \u2014 constituted a call for violence, a \u201cplan B\u201d if Republican objections to electoral votes in favour of Mr Biden did not succeed in derailing certification.<\/p>\n
Referring to Ms Greene\u2019s use of the phrase \u201cthis is our 1776 moment\u201d in a 5 January 2021 Newsmax interview, Mr Celli said it was a call to violence directed towards the throngs of Trump supporters who\u2019d come to Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was one of several leaders who gathered the kindling, who created the conditions\u201d for violence that day, he said. \u201cThen she dropped the match\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge requested written briefs by next week and said he was likely to make a decision a week after that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday claimed not to remember who she spoke to or what she said or did in the weeks between former president Donald Trump\u2019s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden and the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol during a court hearing which will determine whether she is eligible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n