You've probably heard about her incendiary exhortations the other day:
California Representative Maxine Waters joined protesters in Minnesota as demonstrations entered a seventh night on Saturday after the death of Daunte Wright.
Waters told the protesters at Brooklyn Center that she will fight for justice on their behalf and urged them to 'to get more confrontational' - just one day after protests descended into violence.
'I am not happy that we have talked about police reform for so long,' Waters said. 'We're looking for a guilty verdict,' she added in regards to the Derek Chauvin trial. 'If we don't, we cannot go away.'
'We gotta stay on the street,' Waters was recorded saying, adding that protesters needed 'to get more confrontational' and they should ignore the curfew in place.
The remarks caught the ear of the judge presiding over the Chauvin case:
Once the jury left the courtroom for the day, defense attorney Eric Nelson called for a mistrial, citing immense media exposure, particularly a comment by Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters over the weekend in which the California Democrat said while in the Twin Cities that protesters should get "more confrontational" if there is no guilty verdict.
"I'll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result on this whole trial being overturned," Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill said, denying the motion while acknowledging that Nelson's concerns were legitimate.
"This goes back to what I've been saying from the beginning," the judge said. "I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function.
"I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution to respect a coequal branch of government. Their failure to do so I think is abhorrent, but I don't think it has prejudiced us with additional material that would prejudice this jury," Cahill said, adding that the jury has been repeatedly told to not to follow the news.
If I were an identity-politics militant, I'd be saying, "Thanks for nothin', Maxine."
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