Parents of Sandy Hook victims denounce Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican conspiracy theorist who said school shootings were staged

AP21005121947241 — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks as ex-President Donald Trump listens at a campaign rally on Jan. 4, 2021.
AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, has claimed school shootings are staged.
On Thursday, Republicans appointed Greene to the House Education and Labor Committee.
Parents of children killed at Sandy Hook called the move an "attack" on survivors.
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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the newly elected far-right Republican from Georgia who has embraced conspiracy theories about school shootings, will now be on a House committee overseeing the nation's education system. And that, say the parents of a child killed at Sandy Hook, is a vile assault on truth that should have no place in Congress.

As the liberal watchdog group Media Matters revealed, Greene, two years before being elected last November, took to Facebook and declared that "none of the school shootings were real," including the 2012 attack on a Connecticut elementary school that left 20 children and six adults dead.

Instead of being ostracized, however, Greene, who has also personally harassed a survivor of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, was selected by Republican leaders on Thursday to serve on a key committee.

"Having a Sandy Hook and Parkland denier on the House Education and Labor Committee is an attack on any and every family whose loved ones were murdered in mass shootings that have now become fodder for hoaxers," Mark Barden and Nicole Hockley said in a statement. Their child, Daniel Barden, was murdered at Sandy Hook; he was seven years old.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has called Greene's selection "appalling." Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Democratic lawmaker from Connecticut, has also denounced the appointment, sending a letter to Republican leaders denouncing Green's "heinous and wanton disregard for school safety, student trauma, and ultimately, the truth."

In their statement, Daniel Barden's parents thanked Greene's critics for understanding "that hateful conspiracy theories and suggestions that our childrens' violent deaths never happened have no place in our society, much less the United States Congress."

Sari Kaufman, a survivor of the Parkland shooting, earlier this month called for Greene to remove herself from Congress. "She should step down and take her radical extremism, conspiracy theories, and hate-fueled lies far, far away," she said.

Others have since moved to make that decision for her. On Wednesday, Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat for California, announced he was introducing a resolution to expel Greene from Congress.

"Her very presence in office represents a direct threat against the elected officials and staff who serve our government," Gomez said.

The last time a lawmaker was forcibly removed from the House of Representatives was in 2002 when Democratic Rep. James Traficant was convicted of corruption.

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