Marjorie Taylor Greene leaked “confidential” information during a public hearing about a bomb discovered by U.S. Border Patrol Agents in a lightly monitored area of the U.S-Mexico Border earlier this winter she claimed was proof the U.S. military should send troops to the country’s southern border.
The “bomb,” however, turned out to be nothing more than a ball of dirt wrapped in duct tape.
In a field hearing with U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz in Texas Wednesday, the Georgia Republican Congresswoman grilled the Biden Administration’s top law enforcement official on the border about how the agency was working to address an apparent escalation by Mexican drug cartels transporting vast quantities of the deadly drug fentanyl across the country’s southern border.
In her line of questioning, she claimed that U.S. Border Patrol agents in January had discovered a “bomb” in a lightly patrolled sector of the country’s southern border she claimed was evidence the cartels were actively waging war against border patrol agents.
She later posted a photo of the alleged device on Twitter, saying its discovery “changes everything” about the dynamic of debate around the future of the border, and could warrant military intervention to address it.
“Not only are the Cartels murdering Americans everyday through drugs and crime, but now they are planting bombs on our land in our country,” Greene wrote. “Our US military needs to take action against the Mexican Cartels. End this Cartel led war against America!”
Explosive found by Border Patrol Agents Jan 17th. Agents have surveillance of who brought it in and when and confirmed it was the Cartel.
This changes everything.
Not only are the Cartels murdering Americans everyday through drugs and crime, but now they are planting bombs on… https://t.co/VLkiStvHCp pic.twitter.com/8uxwbd1sOn— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) March 15, 2023
Ortiz declined to discuss specifics of the incident, saying that information about the bomb’s discovery was considered “confidential,” and that he would be hesitant to share what he knew about the incident.
Greene, however, was apparently not.
“I’m not going to be confidential, because I think people deserve to know our border patrol agents should not be in those type of conditions where they are at risk of being blown to pieces by the cartels who, by the way, are criminals and should be treated as such,” Greene said.
Reports after the hearing however appeared to confirm that the “bomb” in question was, in fact, a fake.
According to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, while the device Greene posted appeared nefarious, a “high-level CBP official” confirmed the object did not actually contain any explosives.
NEW: A high level CBP source tells me that this was a fake, and was actually filled with dirt. It was discovered by Border Patrol agents in Rio Grande City in the RGV, and while it appeared nefarious, I’m told it did not contain any explosives. https://t.co/x1iWUQ4scZ
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) March 15, 2023
Newsweek has reached out to CBP to confirm his reporting. However, Greene’s evidence is more than just a prop.
During the hearing, Greene used the anecdote of the “bomb” to highlight legislation she’d co-sponsored with other Republican members of Congress to “declare war” on the cartels, whom she used the so-called device as evidence to prove they were “definitely declaring war on us.”
“The American people and our border patrol agents have had enough of it, and I know Americans have had enough of it,” she said.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, pictured here with an “explosive device” found by border patrol agents earlier this year. Anna Moneymaker/Newsweek Photo Illustration/Getty Images/Twitter
Newsweek has reached out to Greene for comment, including details of where she obtained the photograph. However, Greene’s talking points are nothing new: after the kidnapping of several Americans south of the border earlier this spring, Greene called for the U.S. military to station troops at the southern border, saying the military should “strategically strike and take out the Mexican Cartels.”
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador later rebuffed those calls, saying in a news conference, “We are not going to permit any foreign government to intervene in our territory, much less that a government’s armed forces intervene.”
Mexico, he said, was its own sovereign state and “not a protectorate of the United States, nor a colony of the United States.” Other top officials claimed the move was an “obvious” effort to score political points.
House Democrats claimed that was the goal of Wednesday’s hearing as well.
Wednesday’s meeting of the Homeland Security Committee was considered by many to be something of a Republican political stunt to highlight the failures of the Biden Administration’s border policies.
Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, Tennessee Republican Representative Mark Green, the committee’s chairman, claimed all 15 Democratic members of the committee were planning to boycott the hearing following the boycott of a similar hearing in Arizona last month.
“They said coming here was just a political stunt,” Green said ahead of the hearing. “You tell me.”
House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-TN) claims Democrats not showing up to the committee hearing at the border town of McAllen, Texas, is a “political stunt.” pic.twitter.com/0T304F8Cgz
— The Recount (@therecount) March 15, 2023
At least one Democratic member of the committee—Representative Lou Correa—did travel to the border Wednesday, however, where he called on colleagues to consider other measures to address the surge including stronger surveillance measures, more personnel and above all, reforms to the country’s current immigration protocols.
“A lot of issues, a lot of challenges,” he said. “Let’s get busy.”
I just got back from the border. What did I learn? That we’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do. Not just to fund safe, moral border security measures, but to deliver real immigration reform, too.
Let’s get busy. pic.twitter.com/dzJms6Mnvg
— Rep. Lou Correa (@RepLouCorrea) March 15, 2023
