Missouri State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, a Democrat, posted on her Facebook Thursday, “I hope Trump is assassinated!” in response to a post by someone who said a relative is on President Donald Trump’s Secret Service detail.
“I didn’t mean what I put up,” Chappelle-Nadal told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “Absolutely not. I was very frustrated.”
“Things have got to change,” Chappelle-Nadal said, but apparently not her status at a state senator.
“I am not resigning . . . What I said was wrong, but I am not going to stop talking about what led to that, which is the frustration and anger that many people across America are feeling right now,” she said.
“In an interview, Chappelle-Nadal said her comment stemmed from frustration over the events in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend, in which a white supremacist protester allegedly rammed his car into a group of counter-protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman,” the Post-Dispatch reported.
But some, including fellow Democrats, said that Chappelle-Nadal should step down.
“I condemn it,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said in an emailed statement. “It’s outrageous. And she should resign.”
Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) also said Chappelle-Nadal should go.
“(C)alling for the assassination of the president is a federal crime,” Clay said, adding: She’s “an embarrassment to our state” and “she should resign immediately.”
The U.S. Secret Service’s St. Louis field office “is looking into this,” according to the Post-Dispatch.
Kristina Schmidt, special agent in charge, told the Post-Dispatch: “hypothetically” in such investigations, agents try to “determine intent, to determine if there was a violation of federal law. If there is, then we refer it to the U.S. Attorney.”
“According to a screenshot of the now-deleted conversation obtained by the Post-Dispatch, another commenter named Christopher Gagné was writing about a cousin of his who he said was on Trump’s Secret Service detail.”
“But, what I posted earlier, I truly believe will happen, sooner … not later,” he wrote.
“In a subsequent interview with the Post-Dispatch, Gagné said that wasn’t a reference to assassination, but to his earlier-stated belief that Vice President Mike Pence will use the 25th Amendment of the Constitution to have Trump removed from office.”
“Damn,” Gagné wrote, “now I’ll probably get a visit from the secret service smdh.”
Chappelle-Nadal responded: “No. I will. I hope Trump is assassinated!”
The Washington Times reported that Chappelle Nadal has apologized for the deleted post.
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