Critics from the left and right alike tore into conspiracy theorist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene after she tweeted in defense of the suspect arrested on Thursday in a major documents leak.
Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was taken into custody by federal agents in connection with a case involving highly sensitive documents on the war in Ukraine that were released online.
The Washington Post said there is video of Teixeira “shouting racist and antisemitic slurs before firing a rifle.”
But Greene (R-Ga.), a close ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), fired off a defense of sorts.
“Ask yourself who is the real enemy?” she wrote on Twitter. “A young low level national guardsmen? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?”
She wrote:
Greene, who spoke last year at a white nationalist event, was essential to McCarthy’s bid for House speaker earlier this year.
He rewarded her with plum assignments, including a seat on the Homeland Security Committee, despite her history of embracing conspiracy theories and antisemitic rhetoric, and a call this year for a “national divorce” splitting red states from blue ones.
Past and present lawmakers, pundits and observers from both sides of the aisle chimed in to condemn Greene: