Upset over President Trump firing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow is organizing mass marches.
The protests are slated for today at 5 PM.
“It’s happening,” she wrote online. “This is a ‘break the glass in case of emergency’ plan to protect the Mueller investigation.”
“We knew this would happen at some point,” she added. “The day has arrived.”
Maddow posted the messages to her Twitter account, which has 9.54 million followers.
The marches are being sponsored by Indivisible.org, a liberal activist group made up of former congressional staffers.
The group is demanding Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker disclaim any authority over the Robert Mueller’s Russia probe:
Donald Trump has installed a crony to oversee the special counsel's Trump-Russia investigation, crossing a red line set to protect the investigation. By replacing Rod Rosenstein with just-named Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker as special counsel Robert Mueller's boss on the investigation, Trump has undercut the independence of the investigation. Whitaker has publicly outlined strategies to stifle the investigation and cannot be allowed to remain in charge of it. The Nobody Is Above the Law network demands that Whitaker immediately commit not to assume supervision of the investigation. Our hundreds of response events are being launched to demonstrate the public demand for action to correct this injustice.
Maddow’s MSNBC colleague, Matt Miller, earlier Wednesday called for “taking the streets” in response to Sessions’ firing.
“This is a national emergency,” Miller said during an appearance on Deadline: White House. “I don’t think you can overstate the gravity of the situation. And it’s incumbent upon everyone in public life to respond to this like it’s an emergency. This isn’t like all of Trump’s other attempts to interfere with the investigation. He’s reached over and found the one person among dozens of political appointees at the Justice Department who has a preordained hostility, publicly stated hostility to the investigation. I think for people in Congress, they need to step up and object to this. I think people — the broad public, this is the time to maybe take to the streets and say this is not what you expect out of the government.”
Maddow shared a website where people can organize protests:
Maddow also retweeted a Boing Boing posted marketing the protests:
Maddow’s activism comes as Fox News’ Sean Hannity was recently criticized for appearing at a Trump rally.
UPDATE: Maddow has responded to Grabien News’ article. The MSNBC host says her tweeting about these marches is merely “reporting” on them, not encouraging participation:
Rachel Maddow opened her show Thursday showcasing the protests she helped promote on Twitter:
MADDOW: “At 5:00 P.M. local time all over the country tonight, people showed up. In New York City, it was thousands of people in Times Square. Ultimately they marched as a group downtown towards Union Square — it's a distance of 25, 30 city blocks. The marchers apparently stretched for about a dozen of those blocks as they marched downtown. In Virginia, state route 7 in Virginia. ...”
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