CNN —
The Republican-led House of Representatives voted Thursday to pass a resolution to remove Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar from the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee.
House Republicans have argued that Omar should not serve on the committee in light of past statements she has made about Israel, which have in some cases been criticized by members of both parties as anti-Semitic. Democrats criticized the push to oust Omar, saying it was an act of political vendetta and that the Minnesota Democrat was held accountable for his past remarks.
The move comes after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy officially denied seats on the House Intelligence Committee to Democrats Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff, the committee’s former chairman, a move that was condemned by Democrats.
McCarthy vowed last year that if Republicans regained the majority in the House of Representatives, he would strip Schiff, Swawell and Omar from the committees, arguing that Democrats had set a “new standard” when they held the majority by removing Republicans. Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona of the Violent Rhetoric and Posts Committees.
House Republicans, now in the majority, have assigned Green and Gosar to committees for the new Congress.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Thursday accused Republicans of “political vendetta.”
He defended the move by Democrats in the previous Congress to exclude Republicans from committees, claiming they were inciting violence against their colleagues.
“The line has to be drawn when there are members of Congress who actively threaten violence against colleagues,” Jeffries said, adding, “We take threats of violence seriously because we’ve lived through them.”
In 2019, Omar issued a public apology after facing backlash for tweets condemned by both sides of the aisle. The apology came after the Minnesota Democrat faced widespread criticism after suggesting that Republican support for Israel was fueled by donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a prominent pro-Israel group.
There were other incidents: In 2021, a group of Jewish House Democrats accused Omar of equating the US and Israel with the Taliban and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group designated as a terrorist organization by the US. In response, Omar said he “in no way equates terrorist organizations with democratic states.”
Green and Gosar, who will now have assignments on the committee, also face criticism from both sides of the aisle. Last year, Republican leaders in Congress condemned both lawmakers for speaking at a white nationalist conference.
Green spoke at America’s First Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, an event founded by far-right activist Nick Fuentes as an alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. Gosar appeared at the America First Political Action Conference via pre-recorded video, HuffPost reported. Gosar also attended the same conference last year.
Green defended his appearance in a lengthy statement, dismissing the backlash as “false divisions and disingenuous accusations” and said he would not “overrule” other conservatives even if he found their statements “tasteless, wrong or even off-putting at times.”
A CNN KFile review of Gosar’s events and social media posts over the years found the lawmaker has long ties to white nationalists, a pro-Nazi blogger and far-right fringe players. A spokesman for Gosar declined to comment on specific questions about the congressman’s aides in response to the report.
In 2021, Green apologized for his “offensive” comments comparing the mask-wearing rules on Capitol Hill to the Holocaust after visiting the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
Omar, Schiff and Swawell resigned in response to McCarthy’s efforts to strip them of committee seats.
“Kevin McCarthy’s purely partisan moves to remove us from our commission are not only a political ploy, but an attack on the integrity of our democratic institution and a threat to our national security,” Omar said at a recent news conference where she spoke alongside Schiff and Swawell.
Democrats also argued the move was hypocritical, pointing to the fact that embattled GOP Rep. George Santos, who is facing mounting legal trouble and growing calls to resign over extensive lies about his resume and identity, won seats in two committees.
In a sharp reversal of course, however, Santos told Tuesday’s closed-door GOP conference that he wants to leave his two committees until his problems are resolved, three members told CNN.
McCarthy has the power to unilaterally block Schiff and Swawell from serving on the House Intelligence Committee because it is a select committee. Ousting Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee required a vote of the full House.
McCarthy told CNN Tuesday night that he has the votes to remove Omar. The claim came as House GOP leaders worked to block the vote after several members of their caucus signaled opposition to the move.
One of those Republicans, Congresswoman Victoria Spartz of Indiana, announced Tuesday that she is now ready to support a resolution to remove Omar, citing the addition of “due process language.”
“I appreciate Chairman McCarthy’s willingness to address valid concerns and add due process language to our resolution. Discussion and debate are vital to our institution, not top-down approaches,” the congresswoman said in a statement.
Spartz previously indicated that he opposed efforts to remove the three Democratic lawmakers from the committees.
Last week, Spartz issued a statement mentioning how Democrats kicked Green and Gosar out of committees. “Two wrongs don’t make a right. Speaker Pelosi took unprecedented action last Congress to remove Representatives Green and Gosar from their committees without due process. Speaker McCarthy is taking unprecedented action in this Congress to deny some minority committee appointments again without due process,” the congresswoman said at the time.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives voted in 2021 to remove Green from the committees after inflammatory and violent past statements were revealed, including a report by CNN’s KFile that she had repeatedly expressed support for the execution of prominent Democratic politicians in 2018 and 2019 before being elected to Congress. Republicans from the 11 chambers joined Democrats at the time in supporting the move.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives also voted that year to approve a resolution criticizing Gosar and removing him from committee assignments in rebuke to the Arizona Republican for posting a photoshopped anime video on social media showing what appeared to be kills Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and attacks President Joe Biden. Two House Republicans voted with Democrats at the time to pass the resolution.
This story and headline were updated with additional developments Thursday.
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