CNN
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House Republican leaders have tried to block votes to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minnesota, from the Foreign Affairs Committee, after several members of their caucus opposed the move.
One of those Republicans, Indiana Rep. Victoria Sports, said on Tuesday that she was now prepared to support a resolution to impeach Omar, citing the addition of “due process language.”
“I appreciate Speaker McCarthy’s willingness to address legitimate concerns and add due process language to our decision. Consultation and debate are essential to our institution, not top-down approaches,” the congresswoman said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy told CNN he would vote to expel Omar from the committee. “Yes,” he said.
Sports has previously indicated she will oppose efforts to remove three Democratic lawmakers from the committees, including Omar.
In a statement last week, Spartz said, “Speaker McCarthy is taking an unprecedented step in this Congress to deny committee assignments to a minority without due process.”
The addition of the “due process” language has prompted GOP leaders and a handful of Republicans to accuse some members of the fence of voting to oust Omar for making anti-Semitic comments. The past. Omar She apologized for the remarks in 2019, but has since defended some criticism of Israel and some of its American allies.
GOP Rep. Nancy Massey of South Carolina told CNN on Tuesday that she had heard there might be due process included in the resolution, but indicated she would have to see the resolution.
“Here’s the thing. This had never been done before until the Democrats did it against Paul Gosar and Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Massey said. “Normally what is held at every conference is a conference or a steering committee…members choose which committee to go on. This is by no means an example we should set.
GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida told CNN Tuesday night that he had met with McCarthy to discuss changes to the resolution.
“I’m happy to focus on the judicial process,” said Getz, who was waiting to see the final language before taking a position.
McCarthy has vowed to remove Democrats Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Omar from the committee if Republicans win the House majority last year, arguing that Democrats have set a “new standard” by removing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican. Paul Gosar of Georgia and Arizona from the Committees on Nonviolent Speeches and Posts.
Congressional Democrats reacted angrily – arguing that Green and Gosar’s behavior deserved greater reprimands, and that the move to remove Schiff, Swalwell and Omar from the committees appeared to be a political vendetta.
McCarthy has the power to block Schiff and Swalwell from serving on the House Intelligence Committee because it is a select committee. Ousting Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, however, would require a vote of the entire House of Representatives.
House GOP leadership has expressed hope that they will get a vote to remove Omar from the committee. But with Democrats poised to oppose the measure, Republicans control the House so thinly that it will take only a handful of GOP members to block McCarthy from moving forward.
Democrats also argued that the move by the House GOP was hypocritical — given seats to GOP Rep. George Santos, who is facing mounting legal issues and calls for his resignation after lying widely about his job and identity. Two committees.
But in a sudden turn of events, Santos told a closed-door House GOP conference Tuesday that he wants to step down from the two committees until the issues are resolved, three members told CNN.
The New York Republican has called for the release of false statements — including his professional experience, educational background and identity — that he is a member of the Science, Space and Technology Committee and the Small Business Committee. Federal prosecutors are also investigating Santos’ finances. Santos declined to speak to reporters as he left the meeting.
Greene told CNN on Tuesday that Santos’ decision to “abstain” from the committees was his own. She said he told the conference that he would recuse himself from the committees while the GOP tried to oust Omar from foreign affairs.
“He felt there was too much drama about the situation and especially about what we were doing to remove Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee,” she told CNN.
Omar, Schiff and Swalwell pushed back against McCarthy’s efforts to grab committee seats.
“Kevin McCarthy’s purely partisan move to withdraw from our committees is not only a political stunt, but a threat to the integrity of our democratic institutions and our national security,” Omar said in an interview with Schiff. and Swalwell.
House Republicans argued that Omar should not be on the Foreign Affairs Committee after his previous statements on Israel caused controversy and in some cases were criticized by both parties as anti-Semitic.
In the year In 2019, Omar issued a public apology after facing backlash over tweets labeled as anti-Semitic by both sides. The apology came after the Minnesota Democrat faced widespread criticism after claiming that Republican support for Israel was due to donations from the pro-Israel American Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
There were other events: In 2021, a group of Jewish House Democrats accused Omar of comparing the US and Israel to the Taliban and Hamas, Palestinian militant groups designated as terrorist groups by the US. In response, Omar said, “You don’t compare terrorist organizations to democratic countries.”
As House Republicans moved to fire Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee, the new GOP majority assigned Green and Gosar’s committee assignments to the new Congress.
Green and Gosar have faced criticism from both sides. Last year, Republican congressional leaders condemned both lawmakers for speaking at a white national conference.
Greeney spoke at America’s First Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida — an event that is an alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, founded by far-right activist Nick Funtz. Gosar appeared in a pre-recorded video at America’s First Political Action Conference, HuffPost reported. Gosar also attended the same conference last year.
Greeney defended her response in a lengthy statement, dismissing the blame as “false divisiveness and false accusations” and saying she will not “delete” other conservatives, even if she finds their rhetoric “unsavory, misguided, or sometimes offensive.”
A CNN Kefile review of Gosar’s events and social media posts over the years found the lawmaker has long ties to white nationalists, a pro-Nazi blogger and far-right fringe players. A spokeswoman for Gosar declined to comment on specific questions about congressional allies in response to the report.
This story was updated Tuesday with additional developments.