J. Scott Applewhite and Jose Luis Magana/AP Photos
- Kevin McCarthy said that Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene would be back on committees if Republicans win in 2022.
- The House voted on Wednesday to remove Gosar from his committees, and did the same to Greene in February.
- "I've been told by Kevin McCarthy ... of course I'll get committee assignments back," Greene told Insider.
Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday vowed to place GOP Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia back on committees if his party wins control of the chamber in 2022.
"They'll have committees," McCarthy said at a press conference when asked about the idea. "The committee assignments they have now — they might have other committee assignments. They may have better committee assignments."
The House voted to censure Gosar on Wednesday and remove from his seats on both the House Oversight and Natural Resource committees after he tweeted on November 7 an anime video depicting him killing Democratic Rep. Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez. Just two Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, joined Democrats in voting for the censure resolution.
Democrats condemned Gosar's tweet as glorifying violence against his colleague and the president, and the GOP lawmaker took the tweet down on November 9. At the time, he said the video was in "no way intended to be a targeted attack." After the censure vote on Wednesday, Gosar retweeted the video.
McCarthy on Wednesday described the censure resolution as an abuse of power, repeatedly invoking the phrase "rules for thee but not for me."
The GOP leader has raised the notion of retaliating against Democrats should the GOP take back the House next year. He has previously vowed to strip Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota of her committee assignments.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for her part, dismissed the threats when asked about them during a press briefing on Thursday.
"We would not walk away from our responsibilities for fear of something they may do in the future," she said.
The House removed Greene, another far-right lawmaker, from her committee assignments in February because of her past support on social media for right-wing conspiracy theories and political violence. McCarthy, at the time, accused Democrats of a "partisan power grab."
"She has a right to serve on committees," McCarthy said of Greene at his Thursday press conference.
McCarthy's comments echoed remarks Greene gave to Insider on Wednesday.
"I've been told by Kevin McCarthy, I've been told by [House Minority Whip] Steve Scalise, I've been told by everyone — of course I'll get committee assignments back," she said. "And I'll get better ones than I had in the first place. And there's no reason why I shouldn't have them."
At the same time, Greene suggested she wasn't happy with McCarthy over his refusal to punish the 13 House Republicans that voted for Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill. "There's no accountability for Republicans that are helping Joe Biden pass his agenda," she told Insider.
Greene said she wasn't ready to publicly take a position on whether she'd vote for McCarthy in a future speaker's election if Republicans win in 2022, but said "he definitely doesn't have the support he needs right now in the conference." Greene also declined to rule out running for House speaker herself.
source https://www.businessinsider.com/mccarthy-vows-paul-gosar-marjorie-taylor-greene-committees-2022-majority-2021-11