House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) will introduce a resolution to formally censure Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) for allegedly inciting violence during the trial of former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin, Breitbart News reported Monday evening.
“This weekend in Minnesota, Maxine Waters broke the law by violating curfew and then incited violence,” McCarthy told Breitbart. “But Speaker Pelosi is ignoring Waters’s behavior. That’s why I am introducing a resolution to censure Rep. Waters for these dangerous comments, and I hope that all my colleagues — both Republican and Democrat — will stand up for peace on America’s streets.”
McCarthy’s move will force a vote on the House floor on whether to censure Waters. Democrats hold a slim majority of the chamber; however, if a majority of representatives vote to censure Waters, she would lose her chairmanship of the Financial Services Committee.
Waters encouraged demonstrators to “get more active” and “get more confrontational” during Saturday protests against a police shooting in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center. That shooting came in the middle of the Chauvin trial and sparked demonstrations in front of the Brooklyn Center Police Department, some of which have turned violent.
“I hope we’re going to get a verdict that will say guilty, guilty, guilty,” Waters said of the Chauvin trial on Saturday. “And if we don’t, we cannot go away.”
While McCarthy called for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) to take action against Waters, Pelosi said on Monday that Waters should not apologize for her remarks.
However, the judge in Chauvin’s case criticized the congresswoman’s comments.
“I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned,” Judge Peter Cahill told Chauvin’s defense attorney on Monday. Cahill later added that Waters’s comments did not constitute grounds to declare a mistrial.