Cori Bush moving office away from Marjorie Taylor Greene ‘for team’s safety’

Cori Bush will move her congressional office away from Marjorie Taylor Greene’s after the Republican congresswoman and her staff “berated” and “targeted” the Black Democratic lawmaker from Missouri on social media, she said.

“I'm moving my office away from hers for my team's safety,” she announced on Twitter on Friday.

Among the St Louis congresswoman’s first proposals in Congress was a resolution to expel lawmakers like Ms Greene and other GOP members of Congress who supported former president Donald Trump’s false claims of election fraud that inspired violence at the Capitol on 6 January.

“I've called for the expulsion of members who incited the insurrection from Day 1,” Ms Bush said. “Bring [the resolution] to a vote.”

More than 30 lawmakers have asked congressional leadership for increased security at their home offices, fearing additional security threats among supporters of the former president and Republican lawmakers.

"While the US Capitol is protected by the United States Capitol Police with the support of strong security measures, including vehicle barriers and metal detectors, most members spend the majority of their time in their Congressional Districts where security is often sparse,” they wrote.

Congresswoman Bush, a racial justice organiser serving her first term in the House after her election in November, said a “maskless” Ms Greene “berated me in a hallway. She targeted me & others on social media.”

In response, the Republican lawmaker called Ms Bush “the leader of the St Louis Black Lives Matter terrorist mob who trespassed into a gated neighborhood to threaten the lives” of the McCloskeys, a St Louis couple who pointed firearms at demonstrators.

She shared a video of herself conflating the insurrection among white supremacists and far-right supporters of the former president to overturn election results with Black Lives Matter demonstrations against police violence. A person can be heard telling her to "follow the rules and put on a mask" that she was wearing improperly.

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned the former president for “fanning the flame” of violence and “endangering the security of members of Congress to the point that they’re even concerned about members of the House of Representatives being a danger to them."

She said the “enemy is within” the Capitol, with “members of Congress who want to bring guns on the floor and who have threatened other members of Congress.”

A growing list of uncovered social media posts and video footage has revealed Ms Greene’s apparent support for violence against Democratic officials and conspiracy theories suggesting school shootings were “false flag” and “staged” events.

Speaker Pelosi slammed House Republicans for her placement on the House education committee.

“Assigning her to the education committee when she has mocked the killing of little children,” she said. "When she has mocked the killing of teenagers … What could they be thinking? Or is thinking too generous of a word for what they might be doing."

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security issued a terrorism advisory bulletin due to a “heightened threat environment" across the US. The agency warned that anti-government “ideologically motivated violent extremists” motivated by “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives” could “continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence” after being emboldened by the Capitol attack.

“Protecting the Capitol is a matter of protecting our democracy,” Speaker Pelosi said. “The House will not be distracted or delayed from our work to crush the [coronavirus], to meet the needs of the Americans people, and to do so in a way that is fair and just."