Sen. Josh Hawley Thursday criticized a St. Louis prosecutor's plan to investigate a couple who drew guns at a crowd marching toward the city mayor's house last weekend, saying they were protecting their own home and had the constitutional right to bear arms.
"It's an incredible thing to see, especially when you consider that the same St. Louis prosecutor has these dozens and dozens of violent criminals referred to her by the St. Louis police and she hasn't prosecuted any of them," the Missouri Republican said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" about Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner.
The prosecutor said Monday she is working with police and prosecutors to investigate the couple, St. Louis attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey, for possibly making threats against the crowd as it went past their home.
"They were on their own property," Hawley said. "[They were] just standing there with their perfectly Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Are they going to be investigated? It's just insane."
He added that public sentiment concerning protests should not come into an investigation against the couple, as they were on their own property, and they felt as if they were being threatened.
"The truth is they never left their property. They never went toward the crowd, got off the property," he said. "Yet, you are going to investigate and maybe prosecute this couple? That's really an abuse of power."
Hawley on Thursday also accused the Black Lives Matter movement of being a Marxist organization that hates the United States.
"Go to their website and look at what they believe," Hawley said. "The organization and what it is standing for and pushing I think is very, very dangerous. The organization is trying to hijack any movement towards justice for George Floyd. They are trying to hijack that conversation away to their own Marxist political agenda. That's dangerous."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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