QAnon congresswoman has been pushing outrageous conspiracies for years

Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been pushing dangerous conspiracy theories for years, including, as a new report reveals, the baseless claim that the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, was a “false flag” event.

In a Facebook post that year, Greene responded to a comment claiming the Feb. 14 rampage had been faked as part of an effort to take guns away from Americans.

Media Matters first flagged the comments on Tuesday.

“It’s called a pay off to keep his mouth shut since it was a false flag planned shooting,” one commenter wrote beneath a post on Greene’s page about school resource officer Scot Peterson, the Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy who was on campus the day of the attack, but remained outside the school during the shooting.

“Exactly,” Greene responded with an angry face emoji.

Another commenter claimed falsely that Peterson had received a “kick back for going along with the evil plan,” to which Greene responded, “My thoughts exactly!! Paid to do what he did and keep his mouth shut!”

The now-congresswoman appeared to buoy the baseless theory beneath several other similar comments.

Greene previously blogged for a conspiracy website, American Truth Seekers, which has pushed the supposed “false flag” Parkland theory in the past, CNN noted last August.

Greene’s comments are only the latest in a long list of wild conspiracy theories she has promoted.

The Georgia lawmaker is an adherent of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory that claims Donald Trump is attempting to stop an international cabal of high-level Democrats and celebrities from engaging in global child-sex trafficking and cannibalism, and called the supposed leader of QAnon, a shadowy, faceless figure named “Q,” a “patriot” in a 2017 video.

“There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the president to do it,” she added in that video.

There is zero evidence to back up any of the QAnon theories.

In a 2017 blog post, Greene also promoted the debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, which claimed that a Washington, D.C., pizzeria was running a child sex ring involving former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton and is considered the precursor to the QAnon theory.

One believer of that conspiracy ultimately entered that pizzeria in December 2016 and fired several shots from an AR-15 rifle, claiming he was there to “self-investigate” the conspiracy. The man was later arrested and charged with several firearm offenses and was sentenced to four years in prison over the ordeal.

Greene suggested in that 2017 post that Pizzagate was real (it is not).

She has also pushed the rejected 9/11 “truther” conspiracy theory that claims the 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center were an inside job by the U.S. government, saying in a 2018 video, “It’s odd there’s never any evidence shown for a plane in the Pentagon.”

The Georgia Republican lawmaker more recently supported Trump’s false and debunked claims of election fraud, which mostly targeted majority Black and brown cities across the United States that voted for President-elect Joe Biden.

Frequently, Greene would post tweets urging Americans to “STOP THE STEAL” with the hashtag #fightforTrump, referring to what she and many extremist Trump supporters believe was a stolen election.

Trump’s own administration has denounced the idea, stating that there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, as he and his supporters have claimed.

Greene nonetheless tweeted about those lies the day of the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, perpetrated by pro-Trump extremists at his behest, that left five people dead. “Congress is the last line of defense from a stolen election,” she wrote.

Even after the deadly riot, she refused to back down.

“President Trump will remain in office. This Hail Mary attempt to remove him from the White House is an attack on every American who voted for him. Democrats must be held accountable for the political violence inspired by their rhetoric,” Greene tweeted on Jan. 12.

Her conspiracy-laden tweets — including one that read, “I encourage all Americans, not just the 75 million people who voted for President Trump, to mobilize and make your voices heard in opposition to these attacks on our liberties” — eventually led Twitter to suspend her for 12 hours on Sunday over false voter fraud claims. The social media platform said her account had “multiple violations” of the company’s “civic integrity policy.”

Green has also threatened to impeach Biden, who has not yet taken office, claiming he was guilty of “abuse of power.” She has produced no evidence to support that claim.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.