CNN Host Suggests ‘Lock Her Up’ Is Hate Speech, Should Be Banned
During an interview with former FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, CNN host Christiane Amanpour said that Trump supporters chanting “lock her up” qualified as “hate speech” and went as far as suggesting that the government should have banned people from saying it.
The controversial remarks came when Amanpour began asking Comey about the FBI’s criminal investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Of course, ‘Lock her up’ was a feature of the 2016 Trump campaign,” Amanpour said. “Do you, in retrospect, wish that people like yourself, the head of the FBI, I mean, the people in charge of law and order – had shut down that language? That it was dangerous potentially, that it could have created violence, that it’s kind of hate speech? Should that have been allowed?”
“That’s not a role for government to play. The beauty of this country is, people can say what they want, even if it’s misleading and it’s demagoguery,” Comey responded. “The people who should have shut it down were Republicans who understand the rule of law and the values that they claim to stand for. Shame on them, but it wasn’t a role for government to play.”
Comey has been widely criticized by Democrats and Republicans over his handling of the investigation into Clinton and the opening of the FBI’s counterintelligence operation into the Trump campaign.
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