Does Marjorie Taylor Greene care more about political advancement or helping her incarcerated constituents? An investigation.
Marjorie Taylor Greene’s pinned Tweet celebrates Freedom.
“Today and everyday is 1776. Never give up our freedoms. Never let the left steal them away. Be a watchman on the wall and stay on guard every single second of every single day because the left will stop at nothing until they destroy our faith, our families, and our freedoms.”
I don’t know, I don’t think it’s The Left that’s abusing and neglecting people detained pre-trial in a jail in Greene’s own district.
I talked with people locked up in the Whitfield County Jail. They describe absolutely foul conditions—similar (and way worse) than conditions described by Jan 6 protestors in DC jail, whose cause Greene champions. Here’s an excerpt of the story, which you can read on Raw Story in full here.
Matthew Bronson, 36, has been detained in the Whitfield County Jail for five months, accused of false imprisonment and battery. He’s pre-trial. Bronson, a former Marine, is a big fan of Greene, the far-right firebrand who, in her second term, has become one of the most nationally loved — and loathed — members of Congress.
But Bronson also says conditions at the jail are rotten. He said he believes that if Greene knew how badly inmates in her district are being treated, she would do something about it.
“Do you work for her?” he asked Raw Story hopefully before being disappointed to learn via the JailATM messaging service that he was communicating with a news reporter, not a Greene staffer.
Still, Bronson expressed optimism that Greene will come to see conditions in the jail herself and do something to improve them.
Greene, after all, has championed the causes of certain Americans she considers unjustly arraigned or unfairly incarcerated.
They just haven’t been Americans who live in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, which Greene represents.
Greene, for example, traveled to Manhattan earlier this month to protest what she views as the unfair treatment of former Donald Trump on the day a judge arraigned him on 34 felony counts stemming from a hush money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Greene also led several members of Congress on a tour of the District of Columbia Jail where some January 6 riot suspects are detained while awaiting trial.
After an extremely prolonged and unpleasant exchange with Greene’s press person, I extracted a statement blaming conditions on “drugs flooding across the border under Joe Biden and past closing of mental hospitals during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama eras.” She added she was concerned about allegations of mistreatment and said she looked forward to seeing things in the future for herself.
Other inmates describe mold everywhere. The women can’t get menstrual pads or toilet paper, they say. Basic hygiene products like nail clippers are too expensive. The guards deny inmates medication, including pills from the VA that Bronson is entitled to. The food is inedible. One woman says her cellmate bled for days without seeing a doctor. These people are being held pre-trial, which means they’re legally innocent. A ton have been in the jail for months or and some, for years. One guy’s been in there since 2014. A ton of people are sitting in jail after a 2021 arrest, suggesting that the pandemic clogged up the court system. Will Greene crusade about this issue? While some of the charges, like sexual battery and child molestation are serious, the most common charges are meth or failure to appear and other misdemeanors. So, not trying to overthrow Democracy like the Jan 6 people Greene is obsessed with.
Well now Greene knows! I can’t wait till this becomes her top priority.
Does Marjorie Taylor Greene care more about political advancement or helping her incarcerated constituents? An investigation.
Very well said again, Tana. Thank you so much for your focus on these issues, your skilled writing in explicating them, and your moral clarity in your approach.
The only way to afford things while in jail or prison is to bill friends and family of the incarcerated for support, or to have a side hustle on the inside. This is true in the fed, state, and ad seg detention centers.
The cops want you to have a side hustle breaking the rules, because that allows them to arbitrarily and capriciously enforce the rules and distract from what side hustles they have going to extract personal wealth from their position.