Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) arrives to his office on Capitol Hill on November 17, 2021 in Washington, DC. The House is expected to vote on a resolution later today which would censure Rep. Gosar and remove him from the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
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The House is expected to vote Wednesday to censure GOP Rep. Paul Gosar and strip him of his committee assignments for posting an anime video that depicted him killing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and swinging swords at President Joe Biden.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that Gosar’s video is a “threat to be addressed immediately.”
“I’m so pleased that our members understand that this is central to our work in Congress, that means protecting the integrity of the House, of the institution, but also the lives of our members,” Pelosi told reporters on Capitol Hill.
She also slammed GOP inaction in response to the video, calling it “outrageous on the part of Republican leadership not to act on this.”
If the resolution passes, Gosar would be just the 24th House member censured in the chamber’s history, and the first in more than a decade.
Censure is the second harshest formal punishment in the House short of expulsion. It requires a simple majority in a floor vote to pass. House rules would require Gosar, an Arizona Republican, to stand in the center of the chamber as the resolution condemning his conduct is read aloud.
House lawmakers will also vote on a motion to remove Gosar from his assignments on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee. Ocasio-Cortez also serves on the Oversight and Reform Committee.
Earlier this year, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., was removed from her committee assignments for spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories.
Gosar shared the edited video on his official social media channels last week.
It featured a scene from Japanese anime series “Attack on Titan,” with Gosar’s face superimposed on a character bearing two swords and attacking giant characters with Ocasio-Cortez and Biden’s faces. The video also included images of Border Patrol officers with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The video, which was shared to Instagram and Twitter, has since been deleted.
No apology offered
Following sharp criticism from Democrats, Gosar did not apologize for the video and called it a metaphor for immigration policy.
“I do not espouse violence or harm towards any Member of Congress or Mr. Biden,” Gosar said in a statement last week, accusing detractors of “gross mischaracterization.”
“This video is truly a symbolic portrayal of a fight over immigration policy,” Gosar said in the statement.
The resolution to censure Gosar for the video was first introduced by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., a co-chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, and nine other Democratic lawmakers.
The group drew a connection between Gosar’s video and the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, stating that “depictions of violence can foment actual violence and jeopardize the safety of elected officials, as witnessed in this chamber on Jan. 6, 2021.”
The resolution also referred to Republicans’ inaction. It called House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’s initial silence on the matter “tacit approval and just as dangerous.”
McCarthy addressed Gosar’s video for the first time in a statement to CNN on Tuesday.
“He took the video down and he made a statement that he doesn’t support violence to anybody. Nobody should have violence [against them],” McCarthy told CNN. “I called him when I heard about the video, and he made a statement that he doesn’t support violence, and he took the video down.”
Breaking Republican silence
Most Republican members have been silent on the video. But at least two, Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, expressed support for the resolution prior to Wednesday’s vote.
Cheney and Kinzinger are the only Republican members of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots.
In an interview with the Associated Press last week, Cheney said Gosar should be censured for his “continued indefensible activities.” She also criticized McCarthy for his initial silence, calling it a “real symbol of his lack of strength.”
“In a moment where you’ve got an avowed white nationalist in Rep. Gosar who has posted a video advocating the killing of another member, the idea that our leader will not stand against that but that he’s somehow going after and allowing attacks against 13 members who are conducting themselves in a serious and substantive way is really outrageous,” Cheney told the AP.
Her statement referred to the 13 GOP lawmakers who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, who have faced backlash from their Republican colleagues and even death threats from the public because of their votes.
Kinzinger also said he would vote yes on the censure resolution.
“We have to hold Members accountable who incite or glorify violence, who spread and perpetuate dangerous conspiracies. The failure to do so will take us one step closer to this fantasized violence becoming real,” Kinzinger said in a Twitter post Tuesday.
Gosar, who was one of the 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, has a history of engaging with white nationalist groups.
In February, he attended a white nationalist conference hosted by “American First” leader Nick Fuentes, who is known for pushing racist and anti-semitic rhetoric.
Following the event, Gosar attempted to distance himself from Fuentes and his speaking engagement, telling the Washington Post that he denounces “white racism” and that he attended the event to reach a younger conservative voter base.
In late 2019, Gosar also attended a “Trumpstock” rally in Golden Valley, which featured QAnon speakers and supporters.
He has also continually pushed conspiracy theories about the deadly white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017 and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, calling the rioters “political prisoners.”
