The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote Wednesday on a resolution to censure a Republican congressman for posting to social media an animated video depicting him striking another member with a sword and attacking President Joe Biden.
In addition to censure, the resolution calls for removing Congressman Paul Gosar from the House Oversight and Natural Resources committees.
Gosar shared the video earlier this month, an altered anime clip, a style of Japanese animation, that also included interspersed video of Border Patrol officers and migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Responding to criticism of the post, Gosar issued a statement saying it wasn’t meant to depict violence and was instead “a symbolic portrayal of a fight over immigration policy.”
In one scene, a character shown with Gosar’s face strikes a character with the face of Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the neck with a sword.
“In a perfect world, he’d be expelled,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Tuesday. “We are not in a perfect world, so censure and removal from committee I believe is appropriate.”
Some Republicans criticized the push by House Democrats to discipline Gosar, hinting at possible consequences for Democrats should Republicans regain a majority in the chamber in the 2022 elections.
The House approved a measure earlier this year to strip Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments for spreading hateful and violent conspiracy theories.
Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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