Greene, GOPers cite ‘bomb’ found at border. Feds say it was ball of sand.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and a colleague even floated military action in response
Analysis by Aaron Blake Staff writer
Updated March 16, 2023 at 12:10 p.m. EDT|Published March 16, 2023 at 12:08 p.m. EDT
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has repeatedly held up the purported existence of weapons of mass destruction to justify invading Iraq as a cautionary tale.
“Intelligence briefings with ‘reasons’ why we have to go to war with Russia are similar to the intelligence community telling lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” she tweeted in May. She told then-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in November: “Your father lied our country into a war with Iraq.”
On Tuesday, Greene and a GOP colleague floated sending the U.S. military south while citing what U.S. Border Patrol now says was a false claim about a bomb.
At a field hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee near the Texas-Mexico border, multiple Republicans pointed to the alleged explosive device.
“Chief Ortiz, are you aware that there was an explosive device found by Border Patrol agents on no man, in an area called no man’s land?” Greene asked Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz. Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-Tex.) cited “this explosive device that was discovered by one of your Border Patrol agents.” Rep. Dale W. Strong (R-Ala.) labeled it an “improvised explosive device being used against U.S. law enforcement.”
Greene also tweeted a picture of the “explosive,” accusing Mexican cartels of “planting bombs.”
Ortiz didn’t offer much information on the item at the hearing, and he and another witness even seemed unfamiliar with what the Republicans were talking about.
But by Wednesday afternoon, Ortiz tweeted that the item was merely a “duct-taped ball filled with sand.”
“During a Jan. briefing, leadership was notified that Agents found a duct-taped ball filled with sand that wasn’t deemed a threat to agents/public,” Ortiz said.
Greene responded to a reporter who noted a denial from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, insisting. “That’s not what the border patrol agents are telling me,” she said. Her spokesman, Nick Dyer, told The Washington Post that those agents provided “a firsthand account” and said Greene had provided more sourcing information than Ortiz had.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... asnt-bomb/