Below is a fact-check of 11 bogus allegations Greene tweeted in the past month alone, including three related allegations about the integrity of the election. After CNN emailed its congressional office offering it the opportunity to comment on one of these findings, its communications director, Nick Dyer, had only a brief response: “Here is our comment. : “CNN is fake news”.
Facts first: This is simply not true – even setting aside the fact that insurgents near Capitol Hill could have listened to Trump’s speech on their phones or could have been inspired by Trump’s previous rhetoric. There was more than enough time for people to walk about a mile and a half to Ellipse Park, where Trump gave a speech that ended before 1:15 p.m. ET, on Capitol Hill, where rioters were always present more than three hours after Trump’s conclusion. In fact, the FBI alleged that some participants in the insurgency did this walk, including one that would have gone from Trump’s speech to his hotel, then to Capitol Hill.
White supremacists and the insurgency
Abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America tweeted the following about the insurgency: “Anti-choice extremists, white supremacists and violent misogynists have all converged this week to attack our country. . But the point is, these groups already overlap a lot. What we saw was horrific and devastating. But it was not surprising. “
Greene
replied that the attack on Capitol Hill was “terrible and shouldn’t have happened” – but then added that all of the people who died as a result of the insurgency were white, “so I don’t know where your supremacy is coming from white bs. “
Facts first: According to the FBI, it is true, not “bs”, that white supremacists were implicated in the insurgency. (Also, the fact that those killed on Capitol Hill were white obviously does not mean that white supremacists could not be among the perpetrators. Some of those killed had participated in the insurgency. And white supremacists sometimes kill others. white people.)
The FBI alleges Bryan Betancur, who has been indicted for alleged involvement in the insurgency, is “a self-proclaimed white supremacist who has told law enforcement that he is a member of several white supremacist organizations.” The FBI alleges that a confidential source claims that another indicted man, Timothy Louis Hale-Cusanelli, is “an avowed white supremacist and a Nazi sympathizer.”
A third man who has been indicted, Robert Keith Packer, is said to be the man seen in the uprising wearing a “Camp Auschwitz” shirt. The FBI alleges that the shirt “appears to be a symbol of Nazi hate ideology”.
A fourth man who has been indicted, Anthime Joseph (Tim) Gionet, is an internet personality who is known for his role in the racist and anti-Semitic “alternative right” movement and who attended the infamous white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., In 2017.
The charges against the men were announced after Greene’s “bs” tweet, but nonetheless, there was no reason to accuse NARAL of claiming white supremacists were present on Capitol Hill. In addition, a variety of symbols used by white supremacists had been seen on Capitol Hill during the uprising.
The Insider publication reported that Gionet took issue with the claim that he is a white nationalist. Packer did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment prior to his arrest. Betancur and Hale-Cusanelli did not immediately register their lawyers in an online federal system.
Election fraud
Greene
tweeted that “there had been massive electoral fraud on a scale that should terrify all Americans, regardless of their political party.”
Facts first: This is, again, simply wrong. There is no evidence of massive voter fraud – as a Republican election officials across the country and former Trump-appointed attorney general William Barr have recognized. Rather, there was isolated instances alleged fraud by isolated voters, far too minor to have affected the outcome.
In court, even Trump’s own legal team often declined to allege mass fraud – instead focusing on complaints about the law and procedure. But Trump’s team still lost case after case.
The integrity of the election
We will address three related claims under this one heading.
Greene
Many times called the presidential election “
Fly“She
Many times referred to some of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral votes as “
fraudulent. “And she explicitly
claims that Biden “lost” the election and that Trump “won”.
Facts first: All three statements are false. Biden won the election, fairly and legally. There is no evidence to the contrary. Trump’s various allegations of alleged fraud and alleged electoral rigging were dismissed in court and debunked at length by officials and fact-checkers.
The presidential election in Georgia
Greene criticized Gabriel Sterling, a senior official in the office of Georgia’s top election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. She
tweeted, “You organized a Nov. 3 election that was stolen because you SOS idiots mailed millions of postal ballots to everyone while GA was an open state.”
Facts first: Georgia’s presidential election was not “stolen”. Biden won the state fair and the plaza, as confirmed three counts ballots and a Audit signatures of some voters.
Georgia was not one of the states to send a postal ballot to every eligible registered voter; a ballot was only sent to an eligible voter who requested it. Georgia needs no excuse to vote by absentee, but this no-excuse policy was created by the state’s Republican leaders in 2005, not Raffensperger himself.
Senatorial elections in Georgia
Greene
tweeted: “… Georgia state leaders refused to listen to Georgian taxpayers. They refused to change anything after allowing @ realDonaldTrump’s election theft. And they refused to # StopTheSteaI with our two Senate seats. “
Facts first: There was no “theft” of the two Georgia Senate seats; Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won fair and equitable in the January elections. Their Republican opponents, David Perdue and Kelly loeffler, both conceded defeat.
The presidential election in Pennsylvania
Greene
tweeted, “202,377 more votes than voters voting in Pennsylvania! This is called voter fraud.”
Facts first: False again. State officials and auditors explained several times that the claim that Pennsylvania had more votes than registered voters is simply not true; Greene was citing an incorrect figure from a Republican lawmaker who had relied on incomplete data.
The first amendment
The day after Trump’s @realDonaldTrump Twitter account was banned, Greene
tweeted“Yesterday they crushed the First Amendment. You can see what will follow. I swear to do everything I can to protect the rights of the US Second Amendment.”
Facts first: No one crushed the First Amendment on January 8. Greene didn’t explicitly say she was talking about Twitter’s decision to suspend Trump’s account, but if she was, it was clearly inaccurate. The First Amendment prohibits the government from silencing citizens, but it does not oblige businesses, including social media companies like Twitter, to allow citizens to express themselves freely.
Violence in 2020
Greene
tweeted, “ZERO Democrats condemned the political violence of the BLM / Antifa terrorists that lasted throughout 2020. Instead, each of them fanned the flames of hatred.”
Facts first:
Many Democrats – including Biden, House tenant Nancy Pelosi and senior members from the party’s Congress caucus – condemned riots and looting last year while supporting the peaceful Black Lives Matter protests against racism and police brutality.
Republicans are entitled to argue that Democrats should have issued such condemnations with more force or frequency, or that they should have been more explicit in identifying the perpetrators, but it is just incorrect to say or suggest that ‘They haven’t issued any convictions at all.
