Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline,” former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) commented on President Donald Trump’s refusal to apologize yesterday for taking out newspaper ads calling for the death penalty of the Central Park Five.
The group of African-American and Latino teenagers were convicted of raping a white female jogger in 1989.
In 2002, the five men were exonerated after the perpetrator’s confession was backed up by DNA evidence.
McCaskill said, “I think Central Park Five is even worse than Birtherism. There are not both sides here. They found the right rapist with DNA evidence. And this is something who had done this a number of times. This is not one single crime. There is no question that the criminal justice system is 100% certain that those boys were innocent, and they were boys. I mean 14, 15, 16, that they were completely innocent. The fact that this man is so bereft of the moral character to at least say, ‘You know, it was a tough time, it was a tough moment, I was wrong, and I’m glad our system fixed the mistake even though we probably can never make it up to those young men.’ It’s just beyond me that he is such a creep that he can’t even say that. It’s the worst. ”
She added, “I have to make the assumption that this is calculated on his part. Because you can’t — if it’s something he’s doing without thought, that’s even worse. So it has to be a calculation that he is trying to, you know, do the dog whistle to the ugliest part of our society, the white nationalist, Ku Klux Klan, all of those people. And that’s the only assumption you can make by watching his behavior and how he conducts himself.”
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