A tense House Oversight Committee meeting on Thursday night to debate a contempt of Congress resolution against Attorney General Merrick Garland became even more rancorous when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., made it personal against a colleague.
“I don’t think you know what you’re here for. I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading,” Greene told Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, who had challenged Greene on her question about which Democrat was working with Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter.
Greene’s comments sparked immediate criticism from Democrats on the committee, who moved to strike her remarks from the record. “How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told Greene.
“Are your feelings hurt? Aw,” Greene responded. After more back and forth in which Greene challenged Ocasio-Cortez to a debate, Greene then told her, “You don’t have enough intelligence.”
Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., eventually ruled that Greene’s attack on Crockett did not violate House rules against engaging in “personalities” during debate. That decision prompted Crockett to say, “I’m just curious, just to better understand your ruling — if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach blond, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”Greene did agree to strike her comments about Crockett and Ocasio-Cortez from the record, but she repeatedly refused to apologize. “You will never get an apology out of me,” she said at one point. In recent years, the House Oversight Committee has become what Axios described as “ground zero for partisan clashes.” Its members include some of the most polarizing House Republicans, and committee members have clashed in and outside of hearings. Even by those standards, Thursday night’s conflict, triggered and sustained by Greene’s goading, was remarkable. Both Crockett and Ocasio-Cortez on Friday morning called out in particular Greene’s focus on Crockett, the only Black woman on the committee. On the other side of the aisle, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., (himself no friend to Greene) urged his colleagues to “treat one another with dignity and respect,” saying what transpired in the hearing before was “not a good look for Congress.”
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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