Omar slams GOP ‘whitewashing,’ false equivalency with Greene

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Wednesday slammed the push by a handful of GOP lawmakers to remove her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee as a racist and misogynistic attempt to draw false equivalency with the controversies surrounding first-term Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). 

“Republicans will do anything to distract from the fact that they have not only allowed but elevated members of their own caucus who encourage violence. It’s time to stop whitewashing the actions of the violent conspiracy theorists, who pose a direct and immediate threat to their fellow Members of Congress and our most fundamental democratic processes,” Omar said in a statement.

Democrats have set up a Thursday vote to strip Greene of her committee assignments for promoting violent conspiracy theories.

On Tuesday, a group of House Republicans led by Rep. Brian Babin (R-Texas) filed an amendment to Democrats’ resolution to strip Greene of her seats on the House Education and Labor and Budget committees that would instead replace Greene’s name with Omar’s.

Omar also sits on the Education and Labor Committee, so the GOP amendment would take her off that panel as well as the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Omar, one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress and frequent target of the right, blasted the GOP amendment as “a desperate smear rooted in racism, misogyny, and Islamophobia.”

Omar pointed to Greene’s past history of Islamophobic statements and attacks targeting her and other members of the so-called squad of progressive female House members elected in 2018.

Shortly after Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) were sworn into office in 2019, Greene showed up to their offices on Capitol Hill and falsely accused them of being illegitimate members of Congress because they were sworn into office using a Quran instead of a Bible.

And in September, Greene posted a photo on Facebook of herself holding a gun next to images of Omar, Tlaib and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) with the caption “Squad’s Worst Nightmare.”

Greene’s post was later deleted.

Omar came under scrutiny herself during her first year in office over remarks critical of Israel and suggestions that supporters were motivated by campaign donations, which drew criticism from fellow Democrats of anti-Semitism.

The House passed a resolution in March 2019 that condemned anti-Semitism and other forms of hate that did not specifically rebuke Omar, but it was taken up after she suggested that U.S. supporters of Israel had “allegiance to a foreign country.”

House Democrats are moving forward with a Thursday vote on the resolution to drop Greene from all committees.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) met with Greene on Tuesday night and the GOP Steering Committee, which determines members’ committee assignments, met shortly afterward but didn’t reach a resolution.

“I spoke to Leader McCarthy this morning, and it is clear there is no alternative to holding a floor vote on the resolution to remove Rep. Greene from her committee assignments,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a statement.

Democrats are particularly outraged over Greene’s past remarks suggesting that school shootings, including those in Parkland, Fla., in 2018 and Newtown, Conn., in 2012, were staged, as well as her apparent endorsements on social media of calls to execute prominent Democratic politicians such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).