Maxine Waters: Trump Should Be Charged with ‘Premeditated Murder’
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Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) said recently she believes former President Donald Trump should be charged with “premeditated murder” for the rioting at the U.S. Capitol last month that left five people dead.
“He absolutely should be charged with premeditated murder because of the lives that were lost for this invasion with his insurrection,” she said in an appearance on MSNBC on Tuesday. “For the President of the United States to sit and watch the invasion and the insurrection and not say a word because he knew he had absolutely initiated it – and as some of them said, ‘he invited us to come. We’re here at the invitation of the President of the United States.”
Waters, who was vocal in her criticism of Trump throughout his term, said she felt particularly threatened as she locked down in her office as rioters stormed the Capitol.
“Because I took on this president early, I called for his impeachment early, I have been threatened time and time again,” she said.
She placed blame on Trump for the riots, saying his supporters had been following his lead before and during his January 6 rally outside the White House in which he invited his followers to march down to the Capitol as Congress met to certify the Electoral College votes.
“And even there’s information that some of the planning came out of individuals working in his campaign,” she claimed. “We have to fight as hard as we can to see to it that there’s some justice.”
Last month Waters voted to impeach Trump for “inciting an insurrection,” arguing that she believed he was capable of starting a “civil war.”
However, Waters has come under fire for her own divisive comments, including in 2018 when she suggested people harass Trump administration officials in public over its “zero tolerance” policy at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” she said to a crowd in California. “And 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. We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents.”
