Former Gov. Jim Gilmore says Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene is “carrying the Russian message” to weaken the West’s support for Ukraine.
Gilmore, a Republican, was governor of Virginia from 1998-2002, and mounted two bids for the GOP presidential nomination, in 2008 and 2016.
“The Russians do not appear able to win their war of aggression on the battlefield, but they can still win the information war, by persuading the American people that they should withdraw their critical support for Ukraine. You are carrying the Russian message, and you should not do that,” Gilmore wrote in a letter to Greene on Monday.
Gilmore made the letter public on Thursday, and note the timing of both him sending the letter – before the election, when Republicans had whipped themselves into a frenzy over what they assumed was a coming “red wave” – and then when it was made public, after the “red wave” didn’t materialize.
House Republicans assumed heading into Election Day that they’d have at least a 25- to 30-seat majority, which would elevate the status of extremists like Greene, who was stripped of her committee assignments in her first term in Congress for trafficking in a litany of debunked political conspiracy theories.
Control of the House is still up in the air three days after Election Day, though it does appear that Republicans will end up with a slim majority, in the five- to 10-seat range, that would limit the influence of extremist fringe players like Greene.
Before the “red wave” fizzled out, Greene, speaking at a rally with Donald Trump in Ohio last week, said that “under Republicans, not another penny will go to Ukraine. Our country comes first.”
Gilmore, in his letter to Greene, said additional oversight of U.S. aid to Ukraine is “reasonable,” while urging her to correct her statement if that is what she meant.
He indicated in an interview on Thursday that he’s going to work to prevent “this neo-isolationism” that is bubbling up from the fringe of the Republican Party from taking hold and playing into Vladimir Putin’s hands.
“They can’t win on the battlefield, but there’s a new battlefield,” Gilmore said, “and that battlefield is the United States of America.”
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Chris Graham
