Kevin McCarthy, now Speaker of the House, pledged to remove Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee back in June of 2021, saying:
“I think Nancy Pelosi should remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. This is an individual that has not once but on numerous occasions been anti-Semitic.”
“Her own entire Congress had to rebuke her in the last one. But she’s not just anti-Semitic, she’s anti-American now. She’s equating America to Taliban, to Hamas. She’s discrediting our greatest ally in the Middle East, Israel.”
“I will promise you this. If we are fortunate enough to have the majority, Omar would not be serving on Foreign Affairs or anybody that has an anti-Semitic, anti-American view. That is not productive, and that is not right.”
Now, however, there is speculation that he will not be able to do so. As usual, the problem boils down to RINOs not wanting to do something controversial, particularly as the case against Omar being on the House Foreign Affairs Committee is a good bit weaker than the case against Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell. Removing them from the House Intel Committee made sense given Swalwell’s Fang Fang relationship and the leaking both did during the Russia Hoax.
The case against Rep. Omar is essentially a complaint about her “anti-semitism” and is much more a case of Republicans wanting to get revenge by kicking her off a committee as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Paul Gosar were kicked off their committees in 2021.
As a result, it will be harder for McCarthy to corral the GOP Caucus into voting near-unanimously to kick Rep. Omar off the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as will be necessary given the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the House.
Speaker McCarthy, however, has said that he does have the votes necessary to give her the boot, as CNN’s Chief Congressional Correspondent, Manu Raju, announced on Twitter, saying:
“Yes,” Speaker McCarthy told me they will have enough votes to oust Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs.
Apparently, Speaker McCarthy appeased one of the Republicans who was a fence-sitter on the Ilhan Omar issue, Rep. Victoria Spartz, by agreeing to an appeals process for removals. Rep. Spatz, announcing that in a statement, said:
“As to my fellow conservatives, I think setting a precedent of allowing an appeal process for the Speaker’s and majority-party removal decisions is particularly important to freedom-loving legislators who usually are on the receiving end of issues like this.”
GOP leaders flip Victoria Spartz who will now back resolution to oust Ilhan Omar from House Foreign Affairs after they agree to include language allowing her to appeal to House Ethics. GOP leaders believe they will get the votes. pic.twitter.com/hStEvQ6mhe
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 31, 2023
Spartz’s decision to change her mind is important because it gives McCarthy the votes he needs and is a reversal from what she said as recently as January 24th, when she said:
“Two wrongs do not make a right. Speaker Pelosi took unprecedented actions last Congress to remove Reps. Greene and Gosar from their committees without proper due process. Speaker McCarthy is taking unprecedented actions this Congress to deny some committee assignments to the Minority without proper due process again”
“As I spoke against it on the House floor two years ago, I will not support this charade again. Speaker McCarthy needs to stop “bread and circuses” in Congress and start governing for a change.”
So, with her changing her mind, McCarthy might be able to herd the cats that are the GOP Caucus members and get revenge for Gosar and MTG.
By: Will Tanner. Follow me on Twitter @Will_Tanner_1
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