House GOP votes to oust Omar from major committee
WASHINGTON • House of Representatives Republicans on Thursday ousted Democrat Ilhan Omar from a high-profile committee over remarks widely condemned as antisemitic, two years after Democrats removed two Republicans from committee assignments.
The deeply divided House voted 218-211 along party lines to remove Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee with Republicans citing the 2019 remarks for which she later apologized. One Republican voted “present.”
Omar, who arrived in the United States as a refugee from Somalia, is the only African-born member of Congress and one of the only Muslim women in the House. She was in line to be the top Democrat on the foreign affairs panel’s Africa subcommittee.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) walks to her office after being ousted by the Republican-lead House of Representatives to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington.