Marjorie Taylor Greene failed in her efforts to block a lawsuit that could, if successful, bar her from running for office in November. A Federal judge gave a group of Georgia voters the green light yesterday to proceed with their case against QAnon Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who they label as an insurrectionist after she encouraged MAGA fans to attack the Capitol. According to a disqualification clause in the Fourteenth Amendment, insurrectionists may not hold public office.
Judge Amy Totenberg's ruling yesterday means a hearing that was scheduled on Friday can go ahead.
"At the hearing on Friday, we look forward to questioning Greene under oath about her involvement in the events of Jan. 6, and to demonstrating how her facilitation of the insurrection disqualifies her from public office under the United States Constitution," said Ron Fein, legal director of Free Speech for People, the group suing Greene.
From The New York Times:
The disqualification effort is based on a constitutional provision adopted after the Civil War that barred members of the Confederacy from holding office. It mirrors several other cases involving Republican members of Congress, whose roles leading up to and during the deadly riot have drawn intense criticism.
The judge, Amy Totenberg, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia by President Barack Obama, denied Ms. Greene's request for a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order in the high-profile legal feud. …
In the 73-page ruling, Judge Totenberg wrote that Ms. Greene had failed to meet the "burden of persuasion" in her request for injunctive relief, which she called an extraordinary and drastic remedy.
"This case involves a whirlpool of colliding constitutional interests of public import," Judge Totenberg wrote. "The novelty of the factual and historical posture of this case — especially when assessed in the context of a preliminary injunction motion reviewed on a fast track — has made resolution of the complex legal issues at stake here particularly demanding." …
Ms. Greene's critics have said that she frequently referred to efforts to challenge the 2020 presidential election results as "our 1776 moment" in public comments that led up to the riot at the Capitol. They contend that the phrase was a code used to incite violence, and point to the third section of the 14th Amendment in their argument to drop her from the ballot.
That section says that "no person shall" be a member of Congress or hold civil office if they had engaged in insurrection or rebellion after "having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State."
