Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has received backlash after a series of controversial Facebook comments resurfaced. The comments seemed to agree that the Parkland school shooting, which killed 17 students and faculty members in 2018, was a “false flag planned shooting.”
On a post Greene shared in 2018 about Scot Peterson, a school police officer who retired with his pension after being criticized for actions he took during the shooting, someone commented, “It’s called a pay off to keep his mouth shut since it was a false flag planned shooting.”
“Exactly,” Greene replied.
Another Facebook user commented that the pension “sounds like a payoff doesn’t it.”
“Yes it does!” Greene wrote.
One other user called the pension a “kick back for going along with an evil plan.”
Green responded: “My thoughts exactly!! Paid to do what he did and keep his mouth shut!”
“False flag” operations come from the theory which claims certain news events were faked in order to push a hidden agenda, conceal those responsible, or place the blame on someone else.
On Feb. 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and opened fire, killing 17 people. He pleaded guilty in hopes of avoiding the death penalty, and his trial has been indefinitely delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The shooting prompted a number of Parkland students to become activists and led to a storm of online conspiracy theories about inside jobs, planned attacks, and hired actors. That same year, Donald Trump Jr. pushed a conspiracy theory on Twitter that David Hogg, one of the survivors who became an outspoken gun control activist, was the son of an FBI agent and “ran cover” for his father.
Several Florida Democrats were quick to denounce Greene’s 2018 comments. Rep. Ted Deutch, who represents Parkland, told the Miami Herald that Greene’s comments were “infuriating” and said she should “disavow these comments, she should apologize to everyone that she has offended, and, most importantly, she should tell her followers the truth.”
“Radical conspiracy theorists cruelly came to our community in the days after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to outrageously deny that 17 people were killed,” Deutch said. “It’s infuriating that someone like that was elected to Congress.”
This is not the first time Greene’s social media activity has landed her in hot water. The newly elected Georgia representative’s Twitter was temporarily deactivated on Sunday after she spread conspiracies about the Georgia runoff elections less than two weeks after a mob of pro-Trump protesters stormed the Capitol in an attack that killed five people.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Greene’s office for further comment.
