WASHINGTON — Nearly two weeks ago, members of the House Freedom Caucus took a vote to oust Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., from the ultraconservative group. It’s still unclear whether that vote was successful.
Since that June 23 Freedom Caucus meeting, Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., and Greene have had multiple conservations. But a Republican source familiar with those conversations said Perry has not directly notified Greene that she has been kicked out of the caucus.
Another Republican source, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Perry has not brought up the subject because he wants to sit down and talk to Greene about it in person, which likely will happen next week.
Perry and the Freedom Caucus have not publicly commented on the matter and have not returned requests for comment.
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The vote to boot the congresswoman, who goes by the nickname MTG, came after some of her conservative colleagues had grown furious over her support for Kevin McCarthy’s, R-Calif., successful bid for speaker and his debt ceiling deal with President Joe Biden.
But the final straw may have been her clash last month with Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., whom she called a “little b—-” on the House floor.
A Freedom Caucus meeting was hastily called for 8 a.m. on the final day before the two-week Fourth of July recess, two days later, and a vote to remove Greene from the caucus occurred, according to two sources familiar. A third source familiar with the deliberations said the vote was overwhelming in favor of ousting Greene.
“The vote was taken to remove Marjorie Taylor Greene from the House Freedom Caucus for some of the things she’s done,” one member of the group, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told reporters in the Capitol on Thursday.
“The way she referred to a fellow member was probably not the way we expect our members to refer to other fellow, especially female, members,” he said.
But several Freedom Caucus members said they had not been told the agenda of the meeting beforehand and did not attend. The early morning meeting occurred on a Friday before recess and it’s unclear whether there were enough members present for a quorum.
Several sources have described the confusing situation as “a mess,” and the group will almost certainly have to revisit Greene’s membership when lawmakers return from the recess next week.
Greene is one of the Freedom Caucus’s biggest names and has been one of the biggest fundraisers for the House Freedom Fund, a super PAC aligned with the caucus.
In a defiant statement to NBC News, Greene suggested she was not beholden to the Freedom Caucus, but also gave no indication whether she was in or out of the group.
“In Congress, I serve Northwest Georgia first, and serve no group in Washington,” Greene said in a statement. “My America First credentials, guided by my Christian faith, are forged in steel, seared into my character, and will never change. … I will work with ANYONE who wants to secure our border, protect our children inside the womb and after they are born, end the forever foreign wars, and do the work to save this country.”
“The GOP has less than two years to show America what a strong, unified Republican-led congress will do when President Trump wins the White House in 2024,” she continued. “This is my focus, nothing else.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
