Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf claimed that it is her “duty” to call out President Donald Trump’s “racist lie” about illegal immigrants just days after Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to consider prosecuting Schaaf for obstruction of justice.
In a weekend Washington Post op-ed, Schaaf insisted that she did not obstruct justice when she tipped off illegal immigrants in February of potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan has said that at least 800 illegal immigrants, many of whom were criminals, avoided capture because of Schaaf’s warning.
“Mr. President, I am not obstructing justice. I am seeking it,” she wrote. “The president takes issue with a tweet I posted in February in which I notified residents of an impending raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Bay Area, including Oakland. I wanted to make sure that people were prepared, not panicked, and that they understood their legal rights.”
Schaaf claimed that it is her “duty” to call out Trump’s “racist lie” about illegal immigrant criminals.
“As mayor, it’s my duty to protect my residents — especially when our most vulnerable are unjustly attacked,” she continued. “As a leader, it’s my duty to call out this administration’s anti-immigrant fearmongering for what it is: a racist lie.”
Schaaf then repeated the legacy media’s lie that Trump referred to “undocumented residents” as “animals” during the White House roundtable event about California’s sanctuary cities in which he asked Sessions to consider prosecuting Schaaf. Trump, as the legacy media later conceded, was speaking about MS-13 illegal immigrant gangsters and not about “undocumented residents” or all immigrants of color.
As Breitbart News reported, during that sanctuary city roundtable event, Trump said of Schaaf, “You had a thousand people together, many of them were illegals, criminals… and she informed them and they all fled.”
“They all fled, or most of them fled. And that whole operation that took a long time to put together,” Trump continued. “You talk about obstruction of justice. I would recommend that you look into obstruction of justice for the mayor of Oakland, California, Jeff.”
Trump then added: “[Schaaf] advises thousand people… they’re told ‘get out of here, the law enforcement’s coming.’ And you worked on that long and hard and you got there and there were very few people there. To me that’s obstruction of justice and perhaps the Department of Justice can look into that, with respect to the mayor, because it’s a big deal out there, and a lot of people are very angry about what happened.”
In March, Sessions told Breitbart’s Joel Pollak in an exclusive interview before he announced that the Justice Department was suing California over three of its sanctuary laws that Schaaf made a “colossal error” when she tipped off illegal immigrants:
Breitbart News: The number one question people on social media wanted me to ask you was: will the Justice Department be taking action against Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who warned illegal aliens in the Bay Area of ain impending ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] enforcement action and who has said she would be prepared to go to jail to protect her city’s status as a “sanctuary”jurisdiction. I know the acting director of ICE said there was a DOJ investigation into her. Can you comment on that? What are the prospects of that, going forward?
Sessions: I believe that the mayor made a colossal error in her statement that placed the safety of our federal law officers at risk, and that increased the likelihood that hundreds of serious criminals would avoid arrest and continue to remain on our streets, posing a risk to the people of the Bay Area. And we are in communication with [Acting ICE] Director [Thomas] Homan, and we look forward to reviewing the facts as they present them to our attorneys. But I couldn’t comment beyond that.
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