Chris Taylor, a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee national spokesman, calls criticism towards Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), who cited violence in Minneapolis over the weekend, a Republican choice “to mischaracterize and attack a Black woman.”
Taylor attacked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) comments made on the Senate floor Monday afternoon towards Waters. Taylor asked if McConnell was planning to mischaracterize Waters and attack a Black woman.
The tweet said, “I wonder if he brings up Marjorie Taylor Greene’s white supremacist caucus, the unfolding Matt Gaetz scandal, or the money his Republican friends in the House took from accused abusing Steve Wynn.”
The Republican leader spoke about the demonstrations last summer across the country. He said, “unfortunately, some of last summer’s demonstrations devolved into violent and destructive riots, small businesses were looted, civic monuments were defaced, and government buildings attacked,” adding the protests were “not just insults but rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown at the good men and women of law enforcement.”
McConnell continued:
Every single American deserves a fair trial. This is sacred. You do not balance the scales of justice by trying to tip them and yet, this past weekend, one Democratic House member from California took it upon herself to visit the protesters in Minneapolis. She said, quote, “we’re looking for a guilty verdict,” like somebody window shopping or ordering off a menu. She is looking for a guilty verdict. If that verdict is not reached, the congresswoman said demonstrators should not only stay in the street, [but also] we’ve got to get more active, get more confrontational, make sure that they know we mean business.
It’s harder to imagine anything more inappropriate than a member of congress flying in from California to inform local leaders, not so subtly, that this defendant had better be found guilty or else there will be big trouble in the streets. Again, so much of our nation’s quest for civil rights and equal justice has been the fight to get rid, get rid of extra judicial violence, to get rid of rigged trials where the outcome was molded by public sentiment or angry mobs. It’s beyond the pale for a sitting member of the United States Congress to look at what happened last summer and imply there should be some kind of a sequel, a sequel if a legal case does not unfold as she thinks it should.
Now, just a few hours after those comments, two members, two members of the National Guard who are on-site in Minneapolis keeping the peace were targeted in a drive-by shooting. Thankfully, neither was seriously injured, but let’s hope it doesn’t take an injury or a fatality to remind politicians that their words actually have consequences.
Townhall reported Monday Waters requested to have a police escort during her time in Minneapolis. The report shows Waters flew from Dulles International Airport to Minnesota-St. Paul International Airport on Saturday, April 17. That night Waters went in front of protestors demanding a guilty verdict for Derek Chauvin “or else.”
On Monday, Judge Peter Cahill, towards the end of the Derek Chauvin trial, told the Defense regarding Waters’ comment over the weekend, “I will give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.”