Marjorie Taylor Greene faces new lawsuit that seeks to disqualify her as an insurrectionist: report
A new lawsuit filed Thursday seeks to bar U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from holding federal elected office based on the 14th Amendment's ban on engaging in insurrection against the United States.
"The suit argues that Greene’s statements and activities related to the attack on the Capitol on January 6th make the congresswoman an insurrectionist," writes The New Yorker's Charles Bethea, who first reported the news. "A clause of the Fourteenth Amendment specifically prohibits those who have 'engaged in insurrection or rebellion' against the United States from holding public office. The suit, citing this clause, contends that Greene 'is constitutionally disqualified from congressional office and, as such, ineligible to run as a candidate under state and federal law.'”
The lawsuit is being brought by Free Speech For People, a nonprofit that brought a similar lawsuit against Congressman Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), The group's legal director is Ron Fein. A Trump-appointed federal district judge blocked the Cawthorn lawsuit under reasoning disputed by legal experts. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals "sent it back to that judge for expedited reconsideration," Bethea notes.
Today's lawsuit cites "numerous instances in which Greene, on social media or in person, has 'advocated for political violence, up to and including, her encouragement of the insurrectionists on January 6.'"
Among the examples is a tweet that Greene sent out on January 5, 2021, calling the next day “our 1776 moment!” (Fein said that the year 1776, with its invocation of the American colonists’ rebellion against British authority, has become “a code word for violence.”) The lawsuit also points to a video on Facebook in which Greene says, “You can’t allow it to just transfer power peacefully like Joe Biden wants and allow him to become our President because he didn’t win this election.” Taken together, the suit insists, “Greene’s actions and the events of January 6 provide, at a minimum, a prima facie case” for disqualification.Georgia’s secretary of state, the Republican Brad Raffensperger, is required to put any challenge to a candidate’s eligibility before an administrative-law judge, who will then consider the lawsuit’s claims. (Greene has been a vocal critic of Raffensperger, who refused Trump’s request, days before the insurrection, that Raffensperger “find” votes to tip Georgia in Trump’s favor.) “There are many possibilities along the way for different actors to evaluate it in different ways,” Fein told me, of the suit. He said that he expects Greene to appeal the case all the way to Georgia’s Supreme Court, and he was not inclined to guess how its judges would rule should it reach them. “But just looking at the facts and law,” he said, “it’s a strong case.”
© 2022 AFP
