Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has doubled down on her attacks against those who support Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and claimed the Democrats are the "party of pedophiles."
Speaking to Real America's Voice's Prime Time with Dr. Gina Loudon, Greene repeated her controversial remarks in which she accused GOP senators Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins of being "pro pedophile" because they announced they were going to vote to confirm President Joe Biden's pick for the Supreme Court.
After once again making the same accusation while appearing on the show, Greene listed off a number of other issues raised by the GOP in order to attack those on the left, and those who support Jackson, including Disney's rebuke of the so-called "Don't Say Gay" bill in Florida.
"The Democrats are the party of pedophiles, the Democrats are the party of Princess predators from Disney," Greene said.
"The Democrats are the party of elementary school teachers trying to transition their elementary school aged children and convince them they are different gender. This is the party of their identity, and their identity is the most disgusting, evil, horrible thing happening in our country.
"I don't even care about Murkowski and Collins and Romney getting offended, but I hope the people in their states call them out for being pro pedophile and voting for Ketanji Brown Jackson," she added. "Because I find that absolutely repulsive and I think most people do too."
The accusation that those who support Jackson are "pro pedophile" stems from a line of attack spearheaded by Josh Hawley during Jackson's confirmation hearing in which the Missouri Senator accused the judge of being too lenient when sentencing child sex offenders.
Hawley's claims were widely labeled as misleading by fact checkers, with Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor and contributing editor at the conservative magazine National Review, describing Hawley's line of questioning as "meritless to the point of demagoguery."
The attack has also been accused of "pandering" to supporters of QAnon, the far-right movement which believed that Donald Trump was secretly fighting a cabal of satanic child abusers, which included leading Democrat figures, during his time as president.
Greene herself was a supporter of the conspiracy theory which is listed as a domestic terrorist threat by the FBI.
In an August 2017 video, Greene described how there's "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles."
Greene, who has also wrongly once believed the Sandy Hook and Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shootings were fake, later disavowed QAnon and said she was allowed to "believe things that weren't true."
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Sophia Moskalenko, author and psychologist who specializes in radicalization and extremism, said Hawley, Greene and others in the GOP are trying to appeal to QAnon with their attacks on Jackson.
"They're pandering to the base and specifically to white suburban women who responded to QAnon content very strongly in the run-up to the presidential election," she said.
A similar sentiment was made by Olivia Troye, a former White House official who worked as an aide for Vice President Mike Pence, after Romney confirmed he would be voting to confirm Jackson.
"If there was ever any doubt that GOP Senators Cruz, Hawley, Lee, etc., purposely misled Americans & blew the QAnon dog whistle during Judge Jackson's nomination hearing to stir up their base, just take a look at the comments in response to Mitt Romney's tweet supporting her," she tweeted.
In a statement to Newsweek, Greene's spokesman, Nick Dyer, said the congresswoman is "calling it like she sees it."
"Ketanji Brown Jackson has been pandering to pedophiles for years with her rulings as a judge. Democrat activists turn to baseless smears when they can't deny the truth. The truth is KBJ has a soft spot for pedophiles and her leniency is evidence of it."
Update: 6/4/22, 9:55 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with a statement from Rep. Greene's spokesperson.
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About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
