Free Speech for the People’s Clements: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Rhetoric Disqualifying

Free Speech for the People chairman Ben Clements said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Katie Tur Reports” that his group is representing the Georgia voters suing to have Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) disqualified from running for reelection over her comments and tweets surrounding the riot at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Tur said, “The Georgia voters you are representing, why did they file the lawsuit? Voting against somebody is one thing, and wholesale disqualifying them from office is another?”

Clements said, “It’s a rare remedy, and it’s one the Constitution only provides in the case of an official that has taken an oath to defend the Constitution who thereafter engaged in insurrection. This is not about the political choice whether to vote her in or out, this is about the Constitution disqualifying her, and our clients, the ones that brought this challenge, are seeking to enforce that provision of the Constitution, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment and uphold our constitutional democracy.”

Tur said, “The lawsuit does argue the congresswoman helped facilitate the rioters in part with her rhetoric around the results of the election. Do you plan to make the argument that her speech amounted to a call to action?”

Clements said, “It quite clearly did amount to a call to action. She literally called on her supporters to go to Washington, D.C. on January 6 at a point in time when it was very clear. It was reported in the media that violence was likely to occur at the Capitol. In fact, she had a long history of which supporters were well aware of advocating violence against her political opponents. And she specifically called that day, January 6th, as being their 1776 moment, which was well understood among followers of Marjorie Taylor Greene to be a call for exactly what 1776 was, which was a revolution using violence, in this case, not a revolution against a foreign government but an insurrection against our own government, exactly what the Constitution says you are disqualified if you participate in.”

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