(WASHINGTON) — GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Friday became the first member of Congress to publicly testify under oath about the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Monday night, a federal judge allowed a legal challenge by a group of Georgia voters to move forward as they seek to disqualify Greene from running for reelection, citing her alleged role in supporting the attack.

The voters argue a provision of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment known as the “disqualification clause” prevents Greene from holding federal office.

Passed after the Civil War, the disqualification clause bars any person from holding federal office who has previously taken an oath to protect the Constitution — including a member of Congress — who has “engaged in insurrection” against the United States or “given aid or comfort” to its “enemies.”

An avid supporter of former President Donald Trump, Greene has denied any involvement in the attack and said she is appealing.

Judge Charles Beaudrot presided over Friday’s hearing and expert witnesses were called to testify.

In his opening statement, Ron Fein, a lawyer representing five voters who made the complaint against Greene and the legal director of Free Speech For People, argued why Jan. 6 should be considered an insurrection.

“This was not the type of insurrection where the leaders were standing in Richmond, Virginia, giving long-winded speeches,” Fein said. “Rather, the leaders of this insurrection, of whom there were a number, were among us — on Facebook, Twitter and corners of social media that would make your stomach hurt. The evidence will show that Marjorie Taylor Greene was one of them.”

“The most powerful witness against Marjorie Taylor Greene’s candidacy, the most powerful witness in establishing that she crossed the line into engagement of insurrection is Marjorie Taylor Greene herself,” he said.

Fein told ABC News in an email that the Georgia “voters who filed this lawsuit have a right to have their challenge heard” and that he looked forward to questioning Greene under oath.

Inside the courtroom, he pressed the congresswoman on her oath of office.

“If you were aware that somebody was going to unlawfully interfere with the constitutional process of counting electoral votes, you would be obliged to have them arrested or stopped, right?” Fein asked.

She responded, “I had no knowledge of any examples, and so that’s the question I can’t answer.”

The time frame for the judge to render his decision on whether Greene should remain on the ballot is tight. Early voting for the Georgia primary begins May 2 and the primary itself is on May 17.

James Bopp, Greene’s attorney, told ABC News this week that the challenge to Greene is “absurd” and that it shouldn’t be up to judges to decide who represents Georgia’s 14th Congressional District.

“Those voters have a right to vote for the candidate of their choosing. And they have a right to have their vote counted,” he told the court in his opening statement Friday, adding that Greene was not a perpetrator but a “victim” of the attack, which he argued was “despicable” but not an insurrection.

“Her life was in danger, she thought,” Bopp said. “She was scared and confused.”

Bopp also represents GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who is facing a similar challenge against his reelection from a group of voters in North Carolina.

Cawthorn’s lawsuit to dismiss the challenge to his reelection is set for oral arguments on May 3 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia.

In an interview Tuesday with ABC News affiliate WTVC-TV, Greene called the legal challenge a “scam.”

“All I did was what I’m legally and allowed to do by the Constitution as a member of Congress, and that was I objected to Joe Biden’s Electoral College votes from a few states,” Greene said.

Greene also said she was a “victim” on Jan. 6.

Mike Rasbury, one of the voters challenging Greene’s eligibility to run for reelection, said in a statement that Greene “took an oath of office to protect democracy from all enemies foreign and domestic … However, she has flippantly ignored this oath and, based on her role in the January 6 insurrection, is disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution from holding any future public office.”

Rasbury was in the courtroom while Greene testified.

GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was also present in the courtroom Friday, in an apparent show of solidarity with his fellow firebrand Republican.

Speaking on Fox News Monday night, Greene told host Tucker Carlson that Democrats are trying to keep her name off the ballot, maintaining she had nothing to do with the attack on the Capitol.

“I have to go to court on Friday and actually be questioned about something I’ve never been charged with and something I was completely against,” Greene said.

The challenges against Greene and Cawthorn are part of a larger legal effort to prevent anyone allegedly involved in the events surrounding Jan. 6 — or who supported it — from running for reelection.

Similar challenges are being brought against GOP Reps. Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona and theoretically could be brought against Trump if he decides to run for office again in 2024.

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(NEW YORK) — As the midterm elections inch closer and political conversations heat up, one organization is hoping to bring people together despite their differences.

America Talks, in partnership with Gannett and USA Today, launched in 2021 aiming to connect Americans of varying political ideologies. Participants in the online event answer a short survey and the questions ask how they feel about political topics so that they can be paired with someone who has different perspectives than their own. Then, they are matched with someone from across the country and given a guide to help foster the conversation. The idea is based on contact theory, a sociological concept that person-to-person contact can help reduce friction.

The second annual America Talks takes place on Saturday.

Brian Roy, an Independent from Benton, Kentucky, and Brian Webb, a Libertarian from Sheridan, Wyoming, found common ground and friendship during their America Talks conversation last year.

“We began to talk about the differences in Wyoming and in Kentucky. We talked about real everyday things that were not divisive and mean-spirited. And so we’ve continued that dialogue, and he sends me pictures and we talk and we talk about the weather, how cold it is in Wyoming versus how wet it is,” Roy told ABC News, adding that “he checked on us during the aftermath of the tornado back in December.”

“We just had a real genuine conversation, and you know what, we don’t enter into politics. So it’s been good and it’s refreshing, and I wish it would happen here more at home where I live, but it’s still very difficult to communicate with some people,” Roy said.

Mizell Stewart III, vice president of news performance, talent, and partnerships for Gannett told ABC News the program is about “elements of what Americans agree on rather than what divides Americans.”

“In other words, let’s engage people in conversation that is really person to person, not through a social media filter,” Stewart said.

Half of Americans who voted for Joe Biden and almost 60% who voted for Donald Trump view the opposing party as “presenting a clear and present danger to American democracy,” according to the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

And the divisions date back to before the Trump era. Since at least 2012, Americans are more likely to say conflicts between Democrats and Republicans are stronger than between other groups, according to a Pew Research Center study out of 17 countries. Americans also say the country is more divided now than it was before the pandemic.

“I am someone that enjoys politics,” said Roy. “I enjoyed talking about politics up until about two or three years ago, and then it got so contentious, and it got so unfriendly, even among family and very close friends that it got to where it was just no longer a discussion that I wanted to join in.”

While divisions run high, the Pew Research Center also found both Republicans and Democrats when questioned had certain things in common, like wanting their preferred candidates to address the needs of all Americans “even if it means disappointing some of his supporters.”

According to Mizell, those kinds of commonalities are what America Talks is all about.

“…As we begin to peel away layers of expectations, if you will, in conversations like this and really engage in dialogue, what we find is that we have much more in common than we realize,” he said.

That is the lesson Roy has taken away.

“We’re all Americans. We all care about our local communities. We care about our state, we care about our country,” he said. “And when we get down into the weeds of partisan politics, everybody… is attracted to a sound bite, most of them negative, and that’s the sad part.”

“There’s no two-way conversation and I just wish people would relax, calm down,” he added. “When they look at the flag…I wish people would look at that and try to remember that we’re all in this together. And we can agree to disagree.”

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