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The White House said President Trump’s outreach on William Barr’s behalf was a legitimate effort to assist the inquiry into the Mueller investigation.
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON – In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., criticized Republicans and said President Donald Trump needed to be “imprisoned & placed in solitary confinement” because “impeachment is not good enough for Trump.”

Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, called on the Republican Party to stop using “Trump’s filthy talk of whistleblowers being spies & using mob language implying they should be killed,” before adding that she thought Trump needed to be put into solitary confinement.

“But for now, impeachment is the imperative,” she added.   

Waters had been referring to Trump’s remarks recorded at a private event in New York City last week, where he called the whistleblower who provided details about his call with the President of Ukraine “almost a spy,” suggested they had committed treason, and added “We used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

Waters also called for the impeachment of Attorney General William Barr, who she referred to as “Trump’s puppet,” for his alleged involvement in the controversy over Trump’s contacts with the Ukranian government. 

“The lies, coverups, shaking down foreign countries & undermining our democracy will be recorded as one of the worst periods in the history of our country, all led by a dishonorable con man,” she tweeted later.   

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Waters has been an outspoken critic of the president. Trump has called her “low IQ” and warned her to “be careful what you wish for” in tweets posted in June of last year after Waters had advocated for the harassment of Trump administration Cabinet officials in a speech.

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” Waters said to a crowd. “And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”