Politics

Georgia Rep. Greene takes the stand in hearing challenging her reelection eligibility

ATLANTA — Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was on the witness stand in a Georgia courtroom on Friday, fighting to stay on the ballot.

A group of voters is trying to keep her from running for reelection because of her possible involvement in the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.

Channel 2′s Steve Gehlbach is outside the hearing room in downtown Atlanta.

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Lawyers said Rep. Greene played a part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and this is the first time an elected leader has testified under oath about Jan. 6.

Lawyers for the group of voters from her district say she’s ineligible based on a rarely used part of the 14th Amendment enacted after the Civil War to keep anyone who engaged in an insurrection from returning to Congress.

They’ve just started presenting their case, but said there will be no “bombshell” evidence or witness. Instead, they contend that Greene helped organize the attack on the Capitol through social media and “coded” language.

Greene’s lawyer said Jan. 6 cannot be defined as an “insurrection” and what she said leading up to it is protected political speech under the First Amendment.

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Channel 2′s Steve Gehlbach was in the courtroom, where things did get a little strange with mentions of Q-Anon and the Proud Boys, and at one point, a clip of the movie “Independence Day.”

Greene entered the courtroom to cheers from supporters in the audience.

From there, she spent most of the day saying “I don’t know” and generally being a hostile witness on the stand.

“You are using CNN and they have chopped up my words so many times and lied about me so many times,” Green said at one point. “You sound like you have as many conspiracy theories as Q-anon at this point.”

“You believe in Q-Anon, right?” an attorney asked.

“No. I did not say I believe in Q-Anon,” Greene said.

One of Greene’s many supporters in the courtroom, representative Matt Gaetz, was pleased with how the hearing seemed to be going.

“You see a lot of speculation and statements from back in 2019, but if you see that judge is laughing at the petitioners, it’s pretty clear where this is going,” Gaetz said.

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