Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) made controversial remarks before the jury verdict in the Chauvin trial calling for a guilty verdict, saying that activists should “get more confrontational” if they didn’t get that verdict and that “we need to show them we mean business.”

The trial judge, Judge Peter Cahill, criticized her remarks and told the defense, “I’ll give you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.” He further said her remarks were “disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch,” and her comments were “abhorrent.”

When asked about Cahill’s remarks, Waters amazingly argued, “The judge says my words don’t matter.”

Just asked Maxine Waters about the judge’s rebuke of her words, and she said repeatedly: “The judge says my words don’t matter.” When pressed on the judge stating that her remarks could be grounds for appeal, she replied, “Oh no, no they didn’t.” What the judge said: https://t.co/gK7zqzOzuO

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 19, 2021

Waters stood by the use of the word “confrontational,” saying: “The whole Civil Rights movement is confrontation.”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 19, 2021

But she didn’t leave it there. Saturday, Waters spoke with CNN’s Jim Acosta. Her comments were highly inflammatory and could be interpreted as encouraging people to run from the police, suggesting that they might otherwise be killed. She also tried to use Dr. Martin Luther King to justify her “confrontational” words. She argued that Republicans were picking on her remarks to deflect from violent “QAnon” people. How did the Republicans make her make those remarks? Sure are some powerful Republicans!

"Confrontational does not mean violence," Rep. Maxine Waters says about her comments on the Chauvin trial, adding that the judge saying "that I'm going to cause an appeal really is not credible.” https://t.co/hYv6QN8gQc pic.twitter.com/V17uOx85RE

— CNN (@CNN) April 24, 2021

Waters also claimed that that judge “walked [his comments] back” — when the judge did no such thing.

From Daily Wire:

“And of course, he was way off track,” Waters claimed. “And he knows that, in fact, the jurors were not in the room, the jurors had an oath not to look at television, not to read the newspapers, not to engage with people on this. And so he knows that there was no interference with the jurors. But he was basically frustrated and angry, I believe, but I’m very pleased that there are those who are beginning to write about Judge Cahill’s basic comments.”

“And one thing that I read that came from someone from CNN was that the judge was all off track. And he knows that this is not the cause of an appeal,” she concluded. “Most of the time [when] you have a case like this, they’re going to appeal it anyway. But to say that I’m going to cause an appeal really is not credible, and whether or not they have an appeal, and even if they mention my name, like the judge says, my comments, whatever, it don’t matter anyway.”

He didn’t say her remarks don’t matter, meaning it was just great that she was acting improperly; he said that ultimately, he didn’t think her improper and abhorrent remarks reached the jury. Of course, he couldn’t guarantee that. That doesn’t mean that the remarks “don’t matter;” they were still completely wrong, as he said. A sitting member of Congress should never make such remarks.

There’s no question her remarks will be part of the appeal and that would be the ultimate irony if, after all her bluster, the verdict was overturned in part because of what she said.