Tuesday on Bloomberg TV, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn predictably defended fellow Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters’ jury-contaminating incitement to violence regarding the murder trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin.
Asked where to draw the line
“I don’t know where that line is, but I do know this,” Clyburn deflected. “I’m a little bit incensed that this would be politicized by the leadership of the Republican Party. They didn’t have one word to say about Mo Brooks just minutes before that insurrection on the 6th of January.”
Fact check: there was no insurrection on January 6.
“Mo Brooks was making incendiary remarks here in Washington,” he continued falsely. “Maxine wasn’t even in Washington when her remarks were made.”
True: she was in Minnesota mere miles away from the site of the Chauvin trial, speaking to a crowd of demonstrators already primed to burn the Minneapolis down if a guilty verdict was not issued.
“I think we ought to stop trying to politicize every time someone makes a political statement. Let’s just remember, our Constitution guarantees the right to redress, the right to petition, and I believe free speech is there as well.”
Fact check: free speech does not cover incitement to violence. And where was Clyburn’s defense of free speech and his condemnation of politicizing speech when former President Trump, who said nothing “incendiary,” was impeached for “inciting an insurrection”?