Kevin McCarthy, speaking over the summer of 2022 about the upcoming midterms and what he would do if Republicans won control of the House, said that he would remove Reps. Schiff and Swalwell from their House Intelligence Committee assignments and Rep. Ilhan Omar from her House Foreign Affairs Committee assignment.
He quickly fulfilled the first vow of that pledge, getting rid of Reps. Schiff and Swalwell near-immediately thanks to their obvious misconduct while on that committee during the Trump Administration.
The fight against Rep. Omar, however, has proven more difficult, as some Republicans were less comfortable with the idea of removing her.
But, though that was a challenge, McCarthy recently made the headlines when he announced that, contrary to earlier reporting, the Republicans would have the votes necessary to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar from her position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Well, now that Republicans have the votes necessary to remove Rep. Omar, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has to respond to the effort to give her the boot. He did so in a press conference, but things went somewhat off the rails when he admitted that the GOP accusations of anti-Semitism were accurate, saying:
“Now the other thing that’s going to occur today relates to this effort to remove, in a partisan fashion, Representative Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee after House Democrats unanimously voted for Ilhan to continue her service on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
“A refugee elected to the United States Congress, duly sent back to the House by her constituents in Minnesota. Now, Representative Omar certainly has made mistakes. She has used anti-Semitic tropes that were clearly and unequivocally condemned by House Democrats when it took place four years ago...”
Watch Rep. Jeffries admit that here:
BREAKING: Hakeem Jeffries admits Rep. Omar has used antisemitic tropes pic.twitter.com/2wwp4tY2ng
— Clayton Keirns (@CKeirns) February 2, 2023
Rep. Jeffries’ admission on that front is important because it effectively means that he is admitting the GOP accusations about Rep. Omar, the accusations at the basis of her getting kicked off the House Foreign Affairs Committee, are true.
The GOP included those accusations in its resolution about her being kicked off the committee, saying, for example:
“Whereas on February 10, 2019, Representative Ilhan Omar suggested that Jewish people and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) were buying political support, saying, “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby,” leading to condemnation from Republicans and Democrats alike for her use of an anti-Semitic trope;”
There were other accusations of anti-Semitism too, mainly surrounding comments she made about Israel, Israeli-Americans, and AIPAC.
So, though Jeffries was trying to help, his comments were, in reality, less than helpful because they were essentially an admission that the GOP accusations were accurate, even if he didn’t think that fact was deserving of her dismissal.
And, in any case, the real reason for Ilhan Omar’s removal isn’t any past comments she made, but rather that the Democrats removed MTG and Paul Gosar from their Committee assignments in 2021 and now Republicans are getting revenge by giving some of the more notorious Democrats the boot.
By: Will Tanner. Follow me on Twitter @Will_Tanner_1
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