TOPLINE
Less than 24 hours after winning the Republican primary election and all but securing herself as the first U.S. lawmaker to openly support the QAnon conspiracy theory, Marjorie Taylor Greene was sued for defamation by a local mortgage broker over inflammatory remarks made on social media regarding the shooting of Rayshard Brooks.
Marjorie Taylor Greene is all but certain to get its first lawmaker who openly supports the QAnon ... [+]
KEY FACTS
Equity Prime Mortgage’s (EPM) lawsuit claims Greene created a smear campaign against their company with Melissa Rolfe, the stepmother of former Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe, who was charged in the death of Rayshard Brooks.
Rolfe was let go from her job at EPM days after her stepson fatally shot Brooks, telling Fox’s Tucker Carlson that she believed the incident was “the primary motive behind my being terminated.”
Greene then posted on Twitter that she was “praying for my friend Melissa Rolfe and her family,” defending Garrett as “acting in self defense” and bashing EPM for firing Rolfe: “Melissa’s employer caved to the mob and wrongfully fired her!”
EPM wrote in the lawsuit that Greene and Rolfe’s combined “smear campaign” prompted death threats, a boycott and “enormous reputational and financial harm for EPM.”
Contradicting Rolfe’s public comments that she was fired out of nowhere, EPM said the former employee had started stirring up issues a month after joining on March 19, 2020, including making inappropriate jokes via text about “conducting rectal temperature checks in the office,” and that a meeting about the complaints happened one day before Garrett Rolfe shot Brooks.
Greene is a proponent of the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose supporters believe that a “deep state” of federal bureaucrats, Democrats and celebrities are plotting against President Trump and his supporters, while running an international sex-trafficking ring, and has been recorded expressing “racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic views.”
Greene did not immediately respond to Forbes’s request for comment.
Crucial Quote
"Defendants knew that their smear campaign was based on a lie, but they intentionally disregarded the truth to capitalize on national attention related to Rayshard Brooks’s death," reads the complaint, which accuses the two parties of conspiring to “launch a national media firestorm” including televised appearances on the The Glenn Beck Program and Tucker Carlson Tonight, social media posts and speeches.
Key Background
On Tuesday night, Greene beat out her challenger in the Republican primary runoff election for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District. Though she triumphed over John Cowan, a neurosurgeon, she did not have enough votes to win the nomination on the spot. However, the district is very conservative, meaning Greene has a strong chance of winning a Congressional seat in November. Greene has described the QAnon conspiracy theory as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out.”
Further Reading
“QAnon Supporter Greene Wins Primary And Gets Push From Trump” (Forbes)
“Republicans called her videos ‘appalling’ and ‘disgusting.’ But they’re doing little to stop her.” (Politico)
“Twitter Cracked Down On QAnon—But Candidates Touting The Conspiracy Still Thrive There” (Forbes)
