House punishes conspiracy theorist Republican congresswoman over incendiary remarks

The US House of Representatives voted to strip Republican congresswoman and conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene of two high-profile committee assignments in the wake of incendiary remarks that included support for violence against Democrats.

The chamber voted 230 to 199 to strip Mrs Greene of the education, budget and labour committee assignments, with 11 Republicans joining Democrats.

The move, unprecedented in the modern history of Congress, effectively strips Mrs Greene of her influence in Congress by blocking her from committees that are key to advancing legislation and conducting oversight.

Ahead of the vote on Thursday night, Mrs Greene told the House she regretted some "words of the past".

Mrs Greene, who has previously backed claims that the 9/11 terror attack and school shootings were staged events, said: "I was allowed to believe things that weren't true... And that is absolutely what I regret."

However Mrs Greene stopped short of an outright apology, instead shifting blame onto the media, which she compared to the QAnon conspiracy theory which posits that Democrats are tied to a global sex trafficking ring.

"Will we allow the media, that is just as guilty as QAnon of presenting truth and lies, to divide us?" she asked the chamber.

The vote was a key test for a fractured Republican Party and forced Mrs Greene's colleagues to go on the record to defend or rebuke her.

Republican leaders in the House had urged their members to unite behind Mrs Greene and were largely successful, with nearly 95 percent voting to oppose the punishment after she expressed regret for remarks made before she entered office.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat House Speaker, called on her Republican counterparts to "show some sense of responsibility".

She said: "We have the enemy from within. I remain profoundly concerned about the Republican leadership's acceptance of extreme conspiracy theorists.

"Particularly disturbing is their eagerness to reward a QAnon adherent, a 9/11 truther, a harasser of child survivors of school shootings, to give them committee positions. Who could imagine they would put such a person on the education committee?"

Following a Republican meeting on Wednesday night where Mrs Greene expressed contrition Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House leader, said: "The Republican Party's a very big tent."

But Bill Cassidy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, said: "Mrs Greene discredits the conservative movement. "You're talking about lasers from outer space causing wildfires and putting a little bit of an anti-Semitic twist on it. As far as I'm concerned she's not in my tent."

However the majority of Republicans backed Mrs Greene, saying the decision to strip her from committees shattered congressional precedent and warned Democrats of potential political payback should they regain power.

Republican Liz Cheney, fresh from surviving a challenge to her leadership after she voted to impeach Mr Trump last month, said that while Mrs Greene's comments were reprehensible, Democrats "have no business determining which Republicans sit on committees."

Mrs Greene, 46, had taken to the House floor to plead her case before the vote.

"These were words of the past, and these things... do not represent my values," the Georgia congresswoman said.

In a striking moment on the House floor, she acknowledged that "school shootings are absolutely real" and that "9/11 absolutely happened" - US tragedies that she has cast doubt on in the past.

But she did not directly apologise in her 10-minute speech, prompting Democrats to push ahead with the vote.

Republicans were forced to go on record over Mrs Greene's conduct, which includes her trafficking in anti-Semitic, racist and Islamophobic tropes.