Contentious GOP Lawmaker Taylor Greene Touts Trump’s Backing

(Bloomberg) -- A controversial lawmaker from Georgia said she has the support of Donald Trump as she faces criticism for past social media posts advocating violence against Democrats and suggesting mass school shootings were staged.

Freshman GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said Saturday in a series of tweets that she'd had a “great” conversation with the former president, who's been living at his club in Palm Beach, Florida, since his term ended Jan. 20. “I'm so grateful for his support.”

The tweets suggest the sway Trump still holds over some Republican lawmakers, as he faces a second impeachment trial in the Senate in February over his role in the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Trump this week opened an office to “carry on the agenda” of his administration. He's likely to be influential in setting the party's primary lineup in 2022 and hasn't ruled out running for the White House again in 2024.

Greene has been under fire as past comments emerge that are dismissive of victims of U.S. mass school shootings. That includes the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, which she said was a hoax created to enable the government to infringe on gun-ownership rights.

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Certain actions on social media from 2018 and 2019 suggested support for executing Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In one 2019 post, Greene “liked” a comment that said “a bullet to the head would be quicker” to remove Pelosi. In a 2018 video, she suggested that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. were a hoax.

Democrats, including Pelosi, have called on House Republicans to remove Greene from the Education and Labor Commitee, citing her past comments about school shootings.

“Assigning her to the education committee, when she has mocked the killing of little children,” Pelosi said Thursday of Republican leaders in the House. “What could they be thinking?”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is expected to meet with Greene next week, his spokesperson told CNN on Friday. McCarthy also met with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago club on Thursday, declaring that the former president was “committed to helping elect Republicans in the House and Senate in 2022.”

Few Republican lawmakers have spoken publicly about Greene, although McCarthy's spokesman on Wednesday said her past comments were “deeply disturbing.”

GOP Senator Mitt Romney of Utah referred to Greene's “nonsense” in a tweet on Saturday, saying that “lies of a feather flock together.”

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