Marjorie Taylor Greene has been fined at least $15,000 for refusing to wear a mask
The Georgia Republican has been fined at least seven times for violating the Covid safety rule, racking up at least $15,500 in fines
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Your support makes all the difference.Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene has racked up more than $15,000 in fines for refusing to wear a mask in the House of Representatives.
According to the House Ethics Committee, Ms Greene was fined four more times in September for flouting the Covid safety rule. That adds up to a total of at least seven times the Republican congresswoman has been fined for this reason.
In a statement to NBC News, the Georgia representative showed no remorse.
“I will continue my stand on the House floor against authoritarian Democrat mandates, because I don’t want the American people to stand alone,” Ms Greene said.
The penalty for a first offense against the chamber’s mask rule is $500. However, each additional penalty after that is $2,500, which means Ms Greene has accrued at least $15,500 in fines.
According to the House Ethics Committee, Ms Greene’s most recent mask violations were on 22 September, 28 September, and two separate times on 27 September.
The congresswoman was first fined over the issue in May. She appealed that penalty, but a House Ethics panel upheld it. Since then, she has not appealed any of her fines.
Ms Greene has repeatedly spread misinformation about Covid-19, casting doubt on the seriousness of the disease and the efficacy of the vaccines against it. In July, Twitter suspended Ms Green for tweeting – falsely – that the vaccines “should not be forced on our military for a virus that is not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65”.
In fact, Covid-19 has killed Americans as young as four years old, as well as many who were not overweight.
In May, Ms Greene also compared the House mask mandate to the Holocaust.
“You know, we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star,” the Republican told conservative podcaster David Brody, “and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put on trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany, and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.”
After widespread condemnation, Ms Greene at first defended the comments and then, three weeks later, apologised.
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