Greene threatens to oust Johnson over the spending bill
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, took the first step toward impeaching House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday by introducing a resolution calling for his removal after passing bipartisan legislation. had pushed through $1.2 trillion that enraged the far right.
“Today I filed a motion to evict after Speaker Johnson betrayed our conference and broke our rules,” Ms. Greene said shortly after passing the package, which was needed to end a partial government shutdown after midnight. prevent.
Although Ms. Greene said she would not immediately vote to impeach Mr. Johnson, her move presented an extraordinary challenge to his leadership and the second time in less than six months that divided Republicans in the House of Representatives have made an effort to fire their own chairman.
“It’s more of a warning than a pink slip,” Ms. Greene told reporters on the steps of the Capitol. “We need a new speaker.”
Ms. Greene’s resolution, introduced while the spending bill was still being voted on, was a major test for Mr. Johnson’s leadership and was yet another tumultuous moment in the rancorous year the House has endured under a fractured Republican majority .
Ms. Greene declined to say Friday whether she would try to invoke a privilege available to any member of the House of Representatives to force a quick vote on Mr. Johnson’s resignation, leaving lawmakers with a number of questions and uncertainty remain when they leave for a planned two weeks. -week break. But her resolution at least raised the possibility that Mr. Johnson could become the second Republican speaker to face impeachment by his colleagues, less than six months after Republican Party rebels jettisoned former Chairman Kevin McCarthy , making him the first ever expelled from the Republican Party. function.
Before voting began Friday, Ms. Greene rose in the House of Representatives to attack the spending bill, calling it a victory for Democrats and attacking measures she said funded progressive policies.
“This is not a Republican bill; this is a Democratic-controlled Chuck Schumer bill,” Ms. Greene said on the House floor Friday morning.
She expressed outrage that Mr. Johnson, in passing the measure, had violated an unwritten but sacred rule among Republicans against introducing legislation that does not receive support from a majority of their members.
Ms. Greene’s move was the culmination of months of dissatisfaction among right-wing lawmakers over the leadership of Mr. Johnson, an ultraconservative Republican who won unanimous support to become chairman in October but has angered his right flank by cutting a number of deals with Democrats want to keep the government funded.
Ms. Greene told Stephen K. Bannon, a former adviser to the Trump administration, on his “War Room” program on Friday morning that she was considering minute by minute whether or not to call for Mr. Johnson’s impeachment. .”
“Our majority has been completely handed to the Democrats,” Ms Greene said on the floor shortly before introducing her motion, echoing complaints from fellow far-right members of her party that the spending packages Mr Johnson had agreed to represented a failure. their majority.
“This was our strength. This was our leverage. This was our chance to secure the border and he didn’t do that,” Ms. Greene told reporters on Friday before leaving the Capitol. “It’s treason.”
Lucas Broadwater reporting contributed.