Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar got their committee duties back with their new House majority after the two Republicans were booted by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
New House Speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed to get revenge on Democrats for removing GOP lawmakers from House bodies in the 117th floor.
McCarthy announced that Greene will serve on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the Homeland Security Committee, which is likely to investigate DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his handling of the southern border crisis.
He announced that Gosar will also have a seat on the House Oversight Committee and the Committee on Natural Resources, where he previously served.
The oversight panel will now have the two far-right lawmakers helping with the expected Biden administration investigations.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was given new committee duties by Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday after being booted from her boards by Nancy Pelosi in the last Congress
New House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also said he plans to follow through on his threat to block representatives of the far left from serving on the intelligence and foreign affairs committees
The Democrats, now in the minority, can’t do anything about the reallocations.
In a statement on her new committee duties, Green warned President Joe Biden to “be prepared.”
“We will expose every corrupt deal, foreign involvement, abuse of power and check deduction for The Big Guy,” Greene said in her statement Tuesday.
She also addressed her assignment for the homeland security panel.
“Our southern border is being invaded,” she wrote. “Our Border Patrol and ICE agents have their hands tied and have been turned into a welcoming committee by the Biden administration. Cyber attacks on our country’s people and businesses continue, along with many more threats to our homeland.’
“We will investigate the Biden administration’s violations of our laws and will fund (and defund) programs to defend our border and American sovereignty.”
Greene was kicked out of the Budget and then the Education and Labor Boards in February 2021 for a series of offensive comments she made prior to her election to Congress — including promoting conspiracy theories about Jews.
The Democratic resolution to remove her from her committee was also supported by 11 House Republicans.
Paul Gosar will also have a seat on the Board of Supervisors as well as on the Natural Resources Committee where he previously served
Gosar was reprimanded and stripped of his committee seats in the last Congress after posting a bizarre animated video on social media showing acts of violence against progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and President Joe Biden.
“They promised me that if I wanted to stay with Natural Resources and Oversight, I could stay,” Gosar said in regards to his future under the new GOP leadership.
McCarthy also vowed to follow through on Republican threats to eject Democratic Representatives Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell from the Intelligence Committee and bar Ilhan Omar from serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Republicans warned that Democrats would later regret dictating who sits on which committees.
However, spokesman McCarthy told Punchbowl News that he had already taken action against all three representatives of the far left who had earned a seat on those high-profile committees.
McCarthy will block Eric Swalwell (left) and Adam Schiff (right) from serving on the intelligence committees. The spokesman claims that Swalwell “cannot get security clearance in the private sector” and that Schiff has “lied to the American public too many times.”
“It’s not like it’s anything new,” McCarthy said. “Remember, this is Nancy Pelosi — this is the kind of convention she wanted to have.”
“Swalwell cannot get security clearance in the private sector,” he added of his fellow California lawmakers. “I’m not going to give him government security clearance”
He continued, “Schiff has lied to the American public too many times. He shouldn’t be at Intel.’
All three lawmakers say they have committed no wrongdoing and should not be removed from their committees.
However, Swalwell has faced questions about his connections to a Chinese spy named Fang Fang.
The woman helped Swalwell raise money for his 2014 campaign – and while the California Democrat said he had severed all ties with the alleged spy, it was revealed that he was with her on Facebook long after an FBI briefing about her ties to China stayed friends.
For her part, Omar has shared a slew of anti-Semitic comments and sentiments that have drawn criticism from even fellow Democrats.
McCarthy will also work to block MP Ilhan Omar from serving on the foreign affairs panel
She is a key member of the so-called Squad, a group made up of the most progressive left-wing Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib.
With the rules package passed on Monday night, the next big fight is evolving into a partisan brawl on the floor over committee assignments – after more than a week of Republican bickering and chaos over who should be Speaker and what rules should govern the House of the 118 .Congress.
Last week, it took 15 rounds of voting before Republicans finally decided they agree to handing McCarthy the speaker’s gavel.
McCarthy has vowed since 2021 to bar Swalwell, Schiff and Omar from positions on the intelligence and foreign affairs committees.
According to Punchbowl, multiple Democratic leadership sources claim the plan is to keep Schiff and Swalwell nominated for Intel and Omar for foreign affairs.
Freshmen representative George Santos, who has been accused of being a pathological liar, will also receive committee orders, although he faces criminal investigation and orders to resign
McCarthy, as speaker, can unilaterally block Schiff and Swalwell from serving on the Intel panel, but the House of Representatives must crack down on Omar, who oversees foreign affairs.
All three Democrats claim they did nothing wrong and are unfairly targeted by Republican leaders.
Republicans have long announced they would remove Omar, a Somalia-born progressive, from the Foreign Affairs Committee if they win a majority in the House of Representatives.
Omar, who has been in Congress since 2017, claims Republicans have made it their mission to “use fear, xenophobia, Islamophobia and racism to target me in the House of Representatives and through millions of dollars in campaign advertising.”
Schiff, who led the first House impeachment trial against Donald Trump, has attacked McCarthy for threatening to expel him from the intelligence panel, claiming the new speaker will “accept the wishes of Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
McCarthy and Democratic Chairman Jeffries haven’t finalized quotas for House committees as of Monday night, in what could be a process that in and of itself could take several days.
The settlement was delayed due to the ground fight McCarthy faced during the speaker’s vote last week.