Greene says she can’t remember if she urged Trump to impose martial law ahead of Jan. 6

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ATLANTA – Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, testifying Friday about her alleged purpose in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as element of a circumstance searching for to disqualify her from trying to find reelection, claimed she could not don’t forget no matter whether she urged President Donald Trump to impose martial legislation as a way to continue to be in electric power.

“I don’t recall,” Greene, R-Ga., claimed in response to questioning by an legal professional representing the plaintiffs in the case.

“So you are not denying you did it?” the legal professional asked. “You just never bear in mind.”

“I never try to remember,” Greene replied.

The trade was just one of dozens of times throughout Friday’s listening to that Greene stated she could not remember her tweets or statements relevant to the attack.

The situation towards Greene was introduced by Totally free Speech for People, a marketing campaign-finance reform group, on behalf of a team of voters from Greene’s district. The Cost-free Speech team alleges that Greene, who has develop into a lightning rod for controversy and has received a track record as just one of the Republican Party’s most difficult-appropriate customers, helped facilitate the ransacking of the Capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of Biden’s gain.

As she entered the listening to room at the Georgia Business office of Condition Administrative Hearings on Friday early morning, Greene was greeted with cheers and applause from some in the viewers. Greene’s fellow Dwelling member Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., was existing for the hearing as properly.

In his opening assertion, Ron Fein, Free Speech for People’s authorized director, reported that “this was not the style of insurrection where by the leaders ended up standing in Richmond, Virginia, supplying lengthy-winded speeches.”

“Rather, the leaders of this insurrection, of whom there had been a variety, ended up between us – on Facebook, Twitter and corners of social media that would make your tummy damage,” Fein reported. “The proof will clearly show that Marjorie Taylor Greene was one of them.”

Greene lawyer James Bopp Jr. argued that No cost Speech for Men and women needs to “deny the correct to vote to the hundreds of people today in the 14th District of Georgia by having Greene eradicated from the ballot.”

“Voters have a suitable to vote for the candidate of their alternative except if there is very powerful authorized – not rhetorical – justification for that,” he said.

Bopp accused Absolutely free Speech for Persons of hoping to “hold in opposition to [Greene] Initially Modification-secured speech” for her responses about the Jan. 6 attack. He argued that the 14th Amendment was intended to bar any “direct, overt act of insurrection to overthrow the United States authorities,” these types of as the Confederacy marshaling troops.

And through his questioning of Greene, he sought to portray the Georgia Republican as a person of the quite a few victims of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, relatively than a single of its supporters.

“Yes, I was a sufferer of the riot that day,” Greene stated.

In an job interview, Fein explained the case “could also set a nationwide precedent for other users of Congress and officials who broke their oath and assisted the insurrection, and which includes, if he chooses to run once more in 2024, the former president, Donald Trump.”

Greene has turned down the claims versus her.

“They want to discuss about the ‘big lie’? This is the ‘big lie,’ and they’re destroying democracy,” Greene claimed of the circumstance throughout an job interview Tuesday with One particular America Information.

Trump weighed in on the circumstance Thursday afternoon in a statement criticizing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Georgia Secretary of Point out Brad Raffensperger – both Republicans – for allowing “a awful issue to materialize to a quite well-known Republican.” Trump lamented that Greene, one particular of his closest allies in Congress, “is now going as a result of hell in their try to unseat her, just far more of an election mess in Georgia.”

Since his 2020 reduction in the condition, Trump has aggressively unfold baseless accusations about the state’s election units and lambasted GOP legislators who did not acquiesce to his false promises. Trump has endorsed major challengers to both equally Kemp and Raffensperger.

Previous senator David Perdue, R-Ga., the Trump-endorsed prospect who is looking for to unseat Raffensperger, tweeted in assist of Greene Friday afternoon.

“What is taking place to @RepMTG is shameful and mistaken!” Perdue mentioned. “I’m very pleased to stand with her in this fight against the institution.”

U.S. District Choose Amy Totenberg dominated Monday that the scenario in opposition to Greene could continue, a ruling that stands in contrast with other lawsuits towards users of Congress about their alleged roles in the Jan. 6 assault. Totally free Speech for Persons levied a comparable case against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., but he efficiently sued in federal courtroom to block the proceedings.

The group has also filed lawsuits versus Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, both of those Arizona Republicans. The Maricopa Outstanding Court docket dismissed individuals lawsuits Friday.

Greene attempted to block the case from her from proceeding by asking for an injunction and a non permanent restraining get, but Totenberg rejected the request. The congresswoman criticized the determination to allow media shops to go to the proceedings Friday in entrance of an administrative law choose.

Absolutely free Speech for Folks identified as two witnesses. The 1st, Indiana University constitutional regulation professor Gerard Magliocca, has penned thoroughly about congressional amnesty and the 14th Amendment, which bars those who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from federal workplace.

The group’s legal professional then questioned Greene about a time period of a lot more than a few hours.

Through the listening to, Bopp continuously interrupted to lodge objections from the plaintiffs’ questioning. That prompted just one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers to declare at one particular place, “You have a standing objection, Mr. Bopp, to all the things in the planet.”

For the duration of the lengthy questioning, Greene declined to say whether or not unlawfully interfering with the counting of electoral votes in a presidential election would make a person “an enemy of the Constitution.”

“I really don’t know. I do not know if it defines it that way,” the Georgia Republican said.

Greene mentioned that “breaking the law is unlawful” and that more than 700 people today have been billed with various crimes in relationship with the Jan. 6 attack. She has beforehand frequented the D.C. jail wherever some of these charged are becoming held and has explained them as “patriots.”

Greene also stated all through Friday’s hearing that she thought Biden had shed the 2020 election to Trump but claimed it was “not accurate” that she desired Congress not to certify Biden as the winner.

In the days right before the Jan. 6 assault, Greene claimed, “We are not going to allow this election be stolen by Joe Biden and the Democrats.” She was between the 147 Republicans who voted in assistance of at the very least one objection to counting Biden’s electoral votes.

There is no proof that widespread voter fraud took location in the 2020 presidential race.

Greene also was continuously asked on Friday about her Twitter posts and past statements, which include quite a few in which she alluded to the use of violence against her political opponents. In one 2019 instance, Greene accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., of “treason,” which Greene explained at the time as “a crime punishable by dying.”

In a further 2019 incident described by CNN, Greene experienced “liked” a Fb comment in which a user reported “a bullet to the head would be quicker” than impeachment as a usually means of eliminating Pelosi from office.

On Friday, Greene consistently said she did not recall several of her previous statements or was not certain who may perhaps have “liked” particular posts utilizing her account.

“I have no concept who ‘liked’ that remark,” she mentioned, referring to the “bullet to the head” remark.

Greene was asked about a now-deleted 2019 movie in which she identified as on supporters to “flood the Capitol constructing, flood all the govt buildings” and sense totally free to use violence “if we have to” to get the federal federal government to handle their “huge list of grievances.”

“We can do it peacefully,” Greene explained in the movie. “We can. I hope we really do not have to do it the other way. I hope not. But we must come to feel like we will if we have to, for the reason that we are the American folks.”

Greene explained she did not recall producing the assertion.

The plaintiffs also questioned Greene about her repeated references to “1776″ in advance of the Jan. 6 attack, asking regardless of whether she was informed that extremist teams this sort of as the Happy Boys and others had made use of it as “a code phrase for violence to occur” that day. Greene reported she had “no idea” that the term was made use of in that method.

At just one issue in the course of Friday’s proceedings, Greene was questioned whether any individual experienced at any time talked about to her the possibility that violence may well acquire spot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“I don’t recall,” Greene reported.

Later on in the hearing, Greene was asked once more: “Prior to January 6th, 2021, you read that people have been planning to enter the Capitol on January 6th and engage in violence, suitable?”

“No, I hardly ever listened to that from any person,” she responded.

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Online video: On April 22 whilst testifying in a case seeking to disqualify her from operating for reelection, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) included that “breaking the regulation is unlawful.”(The Washington Post)

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