Cori Bush moves office after being "berated" and "targeted" by Marjorie Taylor Greene
Freshman Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush is moving her office to get distance from GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, she tweeted on Friday. Bush said her colleague "threatened" and "berated" both her and her staff.
Greene has been widely condemned by many House Democrats, as she has promoted a host of conspiracy theories and agreed with statements that Democrats should be executed. A House Democrat says he plans to introduce a motion as early as next week to expel her from the chamber.
Bush initially tweeted that she was moving her office because of Greene's behavior on Friday. In a later statement, Bush described an incident on January 13 in the tunnel between the Cannon House Office Building and the Capitol, when she said Greene "came up from behind me, ranting loudly into her phone while not wearing a mask." The day before, several Democrats had announced that they had tested positive for COVID-19 after being in lockdown with Republican members who refused to wear masks during the attack on the Capitol on January 6.
"Out of concern for the health of my staff, other members of Congress, and their congressional staff, I repeatedly called out to her to put on a mask. Taylor Greene and her staff responded by berating me, with one staffer yelling, 'Stop inciting violence with Black Lives Matter'" Bush continued. Greene also "lashed out" against Bush on Twitter on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Bush said, "to falsely accuse me of leading a mob that called for 'the rape, murder, and burning of the home'" of the McCloskey family in St. Louis — thus naming me as a target to her hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers."
"All of this led to my decision to move my office away from Taylor Greene's for the safety of my team. My office is currently being relocated from the Longworth House Office Building," Bush said. An aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi confirmed to CBS News that the room assignment change was by the direct order of the speaker upon request from Bush.
Bush later tweeted that she didn't move her office "out of fear."
"I moved my office because I'm here to do a job for the people of St. Louis," she wrote. "What I cannot do is continue to look over my shoulder wondering if a white supremacist in Congress is conspiring against me and my team."
Greene posted a video on Twitter on Friday afternoon challenging Bush's claim. The video shows Greene walking through the tunnels under the Capitol when someone, allegedly Bush, yells at her to follow the rules and wear a mask. In the tweet, Greene says that Bush is the "leader of the St. Louis Black Lives Matter terrorist mob" who "is lying to you" and "berated me."
Since being sworn in earlier this month, Greene has received pushback from her colleagues in Congress. California Democrat Jimmy Gomez is expected introduce his resolution to expel Greene from the House of Representatives as early as next Tuesday.
In a Wednesday night statement announcing his plan, Gomez cited Green's amplification of conspiracy theories relating to the September 11th terrorist attacks and the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, as well as her past support for social media posts calling for violence against Pelosi and other Democratic politicians. Gomez's call for Greene's resignation has been echoed by the parents of some of the students who were killed during the 2018 shooting in Parkland, Florida. On Thursday, CNN reported on the existence a video from 2019 where Greene is pictured harassing teenager David Hogg, a survivor of the shooting.
Connecticut Democrat Jahana Hayes — who represents the district where Newtown, the site of another school shooting, is located — sent a letter to House Republican leadership and the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, North Carolina Representative Virginia Foxx, to strip Greene of her new assignment to that committee.
Media Matters for America reported on Thursday that Greene had written a Facebook post in 2018 with the anti-Semitic claim that a laser from space controlled by a nefarious group had started wildfires in California.
However, a spokesperson for Greene told CBS News that she will not resign.
"They are coming after me because I'm a threat to their goal of Socialism. They are coming after me because they know I represent the people, not the politicians. They are coming after me because like President Trump, I will always defend conservative values. They want to take me out because I represent the people. And they absolutely hate it," Greene said in a statement.
