Even in the face of widely-spread video proof, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) defends her fiery targeted rhetoric aimed against Republicans against any comparison to charges made against former President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial.
You may recall Rep. Waters’s inflammatory statements from 2018:
“If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA)
It’s a theme that Waters repeated, and was even condemned by Senate Democratic leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Now, with former President Trump facing an impeachment trial for conduct quite similar to Trump’s speech encouraging protests on the Capitol, Waters is now trying to distance herself from the comparison.
Our Take…
What a tangled web Auntie Maxine has woven. She’s never advocated for violence? What exactly do you foresee happening when you tell supporters to get up in peoples’ faces?
While it may be true that she has never directed someone to commit violence, the issue is whether her words could be interpreted as violent rhetoric. Given Congress’s torturous definition of what inciting violence looks like, which looks little like the legal definition.
Maybe that’s why Trump was not charged with criminal incitement – as Professor Jonathan Turley so accurately wrote, “The disconnect between legal analysis and legal reality matters little in today’s media.”
Trump’s Jan. 6 speech would not satisfy the test in Brandenburg v. Ohio, where the Supreme Court said even “advocacy of the use of force or of law violation” is protected unless it is imminent. Trump did not call for the use of force but actually told people to protest “peacefully” and to “cheer on” their allies in Congress. He later — and too belatedly — repeated that after violence erupted, telling his supporters to respect and obey the Capitol Police.
– Prof. Jonathan Turley
You can add Maxine Waters to the list of people who care nothing for actual legal analysis. This is classic “Agenda Gymnastics” – the only difference between Waters and Trump in this case is the partisan laundry they wear.
