Alan Dershowitz: Maxine Waters’ Comments Were ‘Borrowed’ From The ‘Playbook Of The Ku Klux Klan’

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz on Monday slammed Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) comments about activists needing to “get more confrontational” if the jury in the George Floyd trial did not find officer Derrick Chauvin guilty in Floyd’s death.

According to Dershowitz, Waters’ comments were straight out of the KKK’s “playbook.”

“You know, when you think about the irony of what Congresswoman Waters did, she borrowed the playbook of the Ku Klux Klan from the 1920s and 1930s. They would stand outside of courtrooms and they would threaten violence if any jury would ever acquit a black person or convict a white person,” the attorney explained, according to Mediaite. “Now we’re seeing exactly the opposite. We’re seeing mobs outside the courthouse and we’re seeing members of Congress, just like the Klan had governors and senators and very prominent public officials, demanding verdicts in particular cases. And now we have a member of Congress demanding a verdict in a case.”

The professor said the judge in the case should have issued a mistrial over Waters’ remarks. Instead, the judge decided to allow the appellate court to make that decision, something Dershowitz believes was due to the public’s reaction.

“…if he declared a mistrial there’d be riots in the streets and he’d be blamed for it. The true blame would be on Waters but he would be blamed for it,” the professor explained.

Dershowitz pointed out that the case is complex and Waters was attempting to influence the jury.

“Her message was clearly intended to get to the jury: ‘If you will acquit or if you find the charge less than murder, we will burn down your buildings. We will burn down your businesses,” he explained, as Newsweek reported. “We will attack you. We will do what happened to the witness—blood on their door.’”

“This is a very close case on what degree of homicide is involved if the jury gets beyond the issue of causation,” he said. “This is not a simple case of looking at a video. There’s causation, issues of intent, and other issues in the case that the judge instructed the jury on.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) introduced a resolution to censure Waters for her comments. The motion to table the full floor vote passed, with no Democrats defecting.

As The Daily Wire reported, the jury in the Chauvin trial reached a verdict shortly after noon on Tuesday. The former officer was found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd.

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