You can spread conspiracy theories and lies in the Freedom Caucus. You can pal around with white nationalists. You can even foment political violence. But call Lauren Boebert a “little bitch,” as Marjorie Taylor Greene did last month, and you’ve gone a step too far, apparently.
Greene was booted from the hard-right group in a vote ahead of the Independence Day holiday, Representative Andy Harris confirmed to Politico Thursday—“an appropriate action,” Harris told the outlet, given her comments about Boebert. “I think 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,” Harris said, noting that the Georgia firebrand became the first member to ever be expelled from the group because of “some of the things she’s done.”
Those “things” likely go beyond her confrontation last month with Boebert, whom she accused of having “copied” her articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden. Greene, a staunch Donald Trump ally, came into Congress as the face of an extremist insurgency, but has since worked her way through the bloodstream of the GOP to the heart of Kevin McCarthy’s inner circle. Her ascent should, in theory, be a feather in the cap of the MAGA right—a symbol of its influence over the party establishment. Instead, her proximity to McCarthy—the subject of their scorn and distrust—has seemed to create some distance between her and her own faction, which has staged several high-profile rebellions to assert their power over leaders in the narrow House majority.
Greene, for her part, has rejected the Freedom Caucus’s mutinous approach, even as she continues to share in their depraved brand of politics: “I’m just as conservative as they are,” she said in June. But “there’s conservative fantasies,” she continued, “and there’s reality.”
The congresswoman—who has suggested that the Parkland and Sandy Hook school shootings were staged; supported the QAnon conspiracy theory; and floated the idea that California wildfires in 2018 might have been started by space lasers owned by the Rothschilds—is hardly a spokesperson for “reality,” of course. But her distant flirtation with the concept appears to be straining her relationship with some of her fellow travelers on the far-right, who have taken their litmus test to a new extreme. Not only do their members have to embrace the MAGA madness; they have to embrace their hardline approach, as well.
“I think all of that mattered,” Harris said, referring to Greene’s alliance with McCarthy and her vote for the debt ceiling deal he carved out with Biden, which has provided no shortage of grist for the far-right outrage mill. But “I think the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Harris added, “was publicly saying things about another member in terms that no one should.”
Harris’s comments aside, there remains some uncertainty over Greene’s current standing in the Freedom Caucus. As NBC News reports, Freedom Caucus Chair Scott Perry has not yet spoken to her about it, and one member suggested to the outlet that she has “not responded to” several attempts at outreach, perhaps because “she knew she was being dismissed from the Freedom Caucus, and a little bit like someone refusing service from a legal standpoint…if I’m not served, then maybe it doesn’t take effect.” The group expects to deal with the situation when lawmakers return from recess next week, sources told NBC News. Until then, they told the outlet, the whole thing remains a “mess.”
