WASHINGTON ― Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) claimed not to remember which of her colleagues brought up the idea that former President Donald Trump should declare martial law to remain in office after the 2020 election, something she recounted to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in a text message following the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Sorry, I don’t recall,” Greene told HuffPost at a press conference on Thursday.
One would think hearing a fellow member of Congress fantasize about Trump seizing power by military force after losing an election would be hard to forget, especially since it took place 11 days after the violent Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, and only 3 days before President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
But the Georgia Republican stuck to the line after HuffPost followed up and quickly moved on to discussing clamping down on social media companies like Twitter, which she accused of “tyranny” and of being a danger to the republic.
“We’re talking about Big Tech. Sorry, I don’t recall,” Greene said.
In the Jan. 17, 2021 message to Meadows, which was obtained by CNN, Greene said that several of her GOP colleagues discussed the possibility of martial law in a private members-only group chat. How to overturn a democratically elected government apparently was all the rage in the chat, even after hundreds of Trump supporters failed to do so by violently storming the U.S. Congress.
“In our private chat with only Members, several are saying the only way to save our Republic is for Trump to call for Marshall [sic] law,” Greene wrote in the text, apparently misspelling the term “martial law.”
“I don’t know on those things. I just wanted you to tell him,” her text message continued. “They stole this election. We all know. They will destroy our country next. Please tell him to declassify as much as possible so we can go after Biden and anyone else!”
Meadows did not appear to respond to the messages, per CNN.
Greene was also pressed about the Jan. 17 text message in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Wednesday. The congresswoman claimed she personally didn’t advocate that Trump declare martial law to stay in power, even though she brought up the fact that several of her colleagues had endorsed that idea.
“Those are reportedly my text messages,” the Georgia Republican told Ingraham. “I think if people read them for themselves, if those are my text message, they clearly say that I wasn’t calling for that. I actually said that’s something I don’t know about.”