Scientists Appearing Before Congress Upend Marjorie Greene’s COVID-19 Narrative

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Leading to predictably ridiculous outcomes, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — representing a nearly Trump +50 district in her home state — was placed in this Congress on a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee that deals with questions related to COVID-19. That panel held a hearing this Tuesday featuring a pair of expert scientists as witnesses, and Greene was antagonistic.

The witnesses included Drs. Robert Garry and Kristian Andersen, who have been involved in research into the origins of COVID-19 and assert the likelihood of a natural origin for the virus that sparked such intense global upheaval. For some reason, Republicans have carried and run with the idea that the virus originated from some laboratory action, and Greene jumped right into that conspiracy theory-minded argument this week, sharing a volley of supposedly meaningful evidence to ostensibly support the idea. She referenced, for instance, the involvement of a biological weapons expert in efforts inside China at containment.

She also asked the witnesses if they stood by their past support of the idea that COVID-19 had a natural origin.

“I do,” Andersen said. “And I think it’s important to — you mentioned sick researchers here. In the recent report again, the [intelligence community] continues to assess that this information neither supports nor refutes either hypothesis of the pandemic’s origin, because the researchers’ symptoms could have been caused by a number of diseases. This is in the middle of the flu season.” Greene responded by overstating the level of support for the idea of a lab leak in the U.S. intelligence community.

It’s important to note she’s in no way qualified to talk authoritatively about issues involving virology. She was recently talking on Twitter as though she thought someone might try to kill her after she saw an unrecognized attempt to remotely connect to a smart TV of hers, even though it’s very easy for that to have been an accident. Check out the hearing below: