Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to appear in court tomorrow, after a suit claiming she violated the Constitution’s 14th amendment was allowed to move forward. And Greene is appearing to have a bit of a meltdown leading up to her appearance.
The complaint comes from a group called Free Speech for People, which is alleging Greene violated the Constitution’s “disqualification clause,” which says lawmakers cannot “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking their congressional oaths. If found in violation, they would be barred from ever running for office in the future. (A similar suit was recently brought against North Carolina’s Madison Cawthorn.) The clause was originally written to keep former Confederates from holding office after the Civil War but it definitely seems like it should apply to any and everyone who played a role in the January 6 insurrection.
Greene requested a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order to delay the case, which was denied by Georgia District Judge Amy Totenberg. That means Greene is required to show up tomorrow to testify under oath regarding her role in and leading up to the Capitol attack.
Greene seems a little worried, perhaps because she’s built her entire career on pushing lies and unfounded conspiracy theories — from Jewish-funded space lasers starting the California wildfires to the 2020 election being stolen — and has little experience telling the truth, which she’ll now have to do lest she open herself up to perjury charges.
In recent interviews and videos posted to Twitter, Greene has railed against the non-partisan, non-profit political advocacy group behind the suit, calling them “dark money” “leftists” who hate the people of Georgia. But her biggest foe, as she sees it, is the media, whose expected presence in the courtroom clearly terrifies her.
“I really hope you guys get a camera in that courtroom,” she told the extreme right-wing network One America News this week. “You know what the Democrats and the media are going to do: They’re going to click and cut and paste so they can sell a lie on their networks every night.”
She repeated that prediction on the Jenna Ellis Show, hosted by Trump’s former lawyer. “It’s absurd what they are claiming and lying about,” Greene said. “They’re going to allow the press in the courtroom. They’re going to allow the whole thing to be videoed live, out in anywhere in the world they want to. You know what that’s going to look like. The Democrats and the nasty mainstream media—you know, the ones that lie about me constantly anyways—are going to be able to twist and turn and clip out any little piece they want.”
Greene’s concern over the media’s presence in court is strange, considering all the most incriminating things she’s said and done have been done so publicly—like how she’s repeatedly called violent, convicted and/or indicted insurrectionists patriots and “political prisoners” and defended their actions as an attack on “tyrants.”
Honestly, the only reason any media outlet would have to “clip out any little piece” of Greene’s testimony tomorrow is likely because there will just be such an overwhelming amount of incriminating material to choose from.
(via: CNN, Rolling Stone, image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
