Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has drawn flak for a photo showing her wearing a mask on a flight with social media users reminding the Georgia Republican of her fierce criticism of mask mandates and other COVID-19 guidelines not so long ago. Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, called Greene a “typical hypocrite cult leader”. Omar said Greene had endangered lives with her rhetoric instead of encouraging people to follow public health measures. “For her to tell others to go against mandates but follow them herself when no one is watching is hypocritical and needs to be exposed,” Omar wrote.

According to a Twitter user, the photo was taken while Greene was travelling first class aboard a Delta Air Lines flight. The GOP congresswoman’s apparent compliance to federal law, which mandates wearing masks at all times aboard airplanes except for eating or drinking, is in stark contrast to her public stance on mask mandates.

“You know, we can look back in a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely treated as second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany,” Greene said during an interview with Real America’s Voice in May. She later apologised for comparing the mask mandate for House members to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews during the Holocaust after the remarks drew condemnation from Jewish groups, and many Republican and Democratic leaders.

“I’m truly sorry for offending people with remarks about the Holocaust,” she said. “There’s no comparison and there never ever will be.”

Greene has also faced two separate fines for appearing without a mask on the floor of the House of Representatives. The September 8 fine she received from the Office of the Sergeant at Arms was her second fine for violating the House mask mandate, USA Today reported. Violators receive a $500 fine for their first offense, while the second offense draws a $2,500 fine.

On Saturday, Greene criticised the Joe Biden administration and Democrats for being “angry with people, who choose to trust their own immune systems against covid & reject authoritarian vaccine mandates.”