Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was fact-checked by the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol after she claimed brokers had discovered an “explosive” close to the southern border in January.
Greene highlighted her claim about this so-called menace in a query to Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz throughout a Wednesday Homeland Safety Committee listening to in Texas. Nevertheless, Ortiz didn’t make clear the matter when talking to lawmakers. Afterward, Greene repeated her declare via a tweet, together with an image of the alleged gadget, accusing “the Cartel” of “planting bombs” and “murdering People on a regular basis via medicine and crime.”
Fox News nationwide correspondent Invoice Melugin shared the tweet, including that he had spoken to a “high-level CBP supply” that stated the thing was a pretend. “Whereas it appeared nefarious, I’m informed it didn’t comprise any explosives,” he tweeted.
Shortly afterward, Ortiz chimed in with a tweet.
“Right now, I testified earlier than the Committee on Homeland Safety & it was alleged that Brokers discovered an explosive gadget close to the border,” he wrote, sharing the identical picture Greene posted. “Throughout a Jan. briefing, management was notified that Brokers discovered a duct-taped ball full of sand that wasn’t deemed a menace to brokers/public.”
Greene refused to back down, insisting that unnamed Border Patrol brokers had informed her in any other case.
“I’m simply explaining what I used to be informed in the present day,” she stated.
When reached by HuffPost for remark, Greene’s spokesperson didn’t make clear Greene’s sources or present proof, as a substitute writing: “Cease being a state-sponsored propagandist.”
Greene, an anti-immigration hardliner, has hammered the Biden administration over undocumented U.S. border crossings from Mexico, usually utilizing incorrect figures. Final month, she confronted ridicule after she accused the federal government of permitting “6 billion” folks illegally cross into the U.S. (She later up to date the determine to six million ― which is still dubious.)
Weeks in the past, she used the deaths of two brothers who died from fentanyl poisoning to assault the Biden administration for its “refusal to safe our border and cease the Cartel’s [sic] from murdering People on a regular basis.” When a fact-checker pointed out that these males died in 2020, when Donald Trump, not Biden, was president, Greene’s spokesperson informed him that a lot of folks had died from medicine underneath Biden and “do you suppose they offer a fuck about your bullshit truth checking?’”
Greene has additionally leaned into the controversial white supremacist “invasion” and
“replacement” language in her pushes for border safety. On Wednesday, she tweeted a graph about unlawful migrant encounters, writing: “We don’t know who or what’s coming throughout our Southern border. However we do know that we’re being systematically and deliberately changed by Joe Biden and the Democrats’ open border insurance policies.”
