Democrats Charge MTG With Spreading Russian ‘Propaganda’ ‘Disinformation’ For Discussing Nazism in Ukraine

Last updated on August 7th, 2024 at 04:29 pm

References by Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) to neo-Nazis within Ukrainian society and military ranks led to a back-and-forth exchange during a Wednesday House hearing, in which Democrats accused the Georgia Republican of spreading Russian disinformation and propaganda.

The exchange began in part after Greene pushed back on comments made by Prof. Timothy David Snyder in his opening statements for a House Oversight Committee hearing.

Snyder, a witness called by the committee’s Democrat minority, said Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on “the basis of a big lie about Nazis” in the country and said Russian and Chinese “propaganda” continues to shape House debates about continued U.S. support for the Ukrainian government. Snyder further criticized Greene and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) by name in his opening remarks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described his decision to invade Ukraine as an effort to “denazify” the region.

Greene responded to Snyder’s charges by noting a January 2021 article by Time Magazine titled “How a White-Supremacist Militia Uses Facebook to Radicalize and Train New Members.” The article, in part describes a Norwegian national named Joachim Furholm, who had been convicted of bank robbery in Norway in 2010 before working as a recruiter for Ukraine’s Azov movement. The article notes Furholm “made no secret of his neo-Nazi politics.”

The Democrat witness at today’s Oversight hearing attacked me and claimed I spread disinformation by telling the truth about the neo-nazis in the Ukrainian military.

Time and NBC have both reported on it, but now it's "Russian disinformation."

I set him straight. pic.twitter.com/JT1GjRIiz9

— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 17, 2024

Greene introduced a second article, an opinion piece published by NBC News titled “Ukraine’s Nazi problem is real, even if Putin’s ‘denazification’ claim isn’t” which argues that Putin’s claims to be “nazifying” Ukraine aren’t sincere but that “it would be a dangerous oversight to deny Ukraine’s antisemitic history and collaboration with Hitler’s Nazis, as well as the latter-day embrace of neo-Nazi factions in some quarters.”

“I can’t understand why in just a short amount of time, this information that our own American media frequently talked about is no longer talking about,” Greene said.

The Republican congresswoman proceeded to display another photo purporting to show Ukrainian soldiers performing a straight-armed salute. This style of salute was used throughout Nazi Germany.

“Contrary to what you testified,” Greene told Snyder, “there’s frequent pictures all over anybody can find them of Nazis. Here they are. This looks like something you’d see out of Hitler’s Germany, from Ukraine. And this is something that’s extremely important to talk about.”

Toward the end of the Wednesday hearing, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), a Jewish member of Congress, expressed dismay over references to Nazism when discussing Ukraine.

“There are no concentration camps in Ukraine. They’re not taking babies and shooting them in the air because they’re Jewish. There’s no gas chambers. There’s no ovens. They’re not railing people in, they’re not ripping gold out of people’s mouth, they’re not taking stuff out of their home, they’re not trying to erase a people. They’re Ukrainians,” Moskowitz said.

The Florida Democrat said “the only people who know about Nazis and Hitler are the 10 million people and their families who lost their loved ones,” adding “enough of this disgusting behavior, using Nazis as propaganda.”

Moskowitz responds to comments made by Greene: I say this as someone whose grandparents escaped the holocaust… There’s no gas chambers in Ukraine. They’re not railing people in. They’re not trying to erase a people. Stop bringing up Nazis and Hitler. You want to talk about… pic.twitter.com/udnHk568eM

— Acyn (@Acyn) April 17, 2024

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, also criticized Greene in an interview with MSNBC on Wednesday evening.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, has been recycling direct Russian propaganda. She says that our tax dollars are going to support Ukrainian Nazis, and that is a Putin line, that he’s de-Nazifying Ukraine and that it’s a Nazi state,” Raskin said.

Raskin further noted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish, stating, “So, calling [Ukraine] a Nazi state is such an affront and an insult to the Ukrainian people, and it’s just a lie.”

Zelenskyy’s Jewish background did not stop him from joining a standing ovation for Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian Canadian citizen who fought in the Nazi SS Galicia Division during World War II, while appearing before Canada’s parliament in September.

Anthony Rota, the speaker of the House of Commons, had chosen to recognize Hunka for fighting against in Ukraine against the Russians during World War II, apparently overlooking the fact that the Russian’s were fighting Nazi Germany and its axis allies during World War II. Rota later resigned over the incident.