Maria Chappelle-Nadal, as we had previously reported, recently posted to Facebook in a comment while exchanging with someone else that she hoped President Donald Trump got assassinated and is now potentially looking at the end of her career. Now, Lt. Gov. Mike Parson is involved and Chappelle-Nadal may be facing explosion if she does not resign.
Parson traveled to Greene County Sheriff’s Office in Springfield on Friday to talk to local reporters about the state senator’s comments she made on Facebook.
“We had a sitting senator in the state of Missouri that asked for the president of the United States to be executed, to be assassinated,” Parson said. “And it doesn’t matter what the last name of the president is, whether it be Trump, Obama, Clinton, Bush. The office of the presidency of the United States is much larger than anybody’s last name.”
As reported by News-Leader.com:
Parson, the current president of the Missouri Senate and a former state senator himself, was but one voice in a chorus of folks on the left and the right calling for Chappelle-Nadal to quit. If she doesn’t — and she told the News-Leader “Hell no!” when asked whether she’d resign — her peers could force her out in a special session, Parson said.
Chappelle-Nadal has said she was frustrated about Trump’s reaction to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, and has compared herself to other previous transgressors.
“Legislators cheat on their wives and are not asked to resign,” she told the News-Leader on Thursday. She did not respond to an inquiry Friday but was active on Twitter, sharing posts of solidarity and what appeared to be racist messages sent to her over Twitter.
Parson was not impressed by Chappelle-Nadal’s response.
“Her attempts to deflect criticism and avoid the blame are unacceptable,” Parson said while reading from a statement. “She may have been angry when she wrote those words, but anger is not a valid excuse. The comments she made are indefensible.”
Parson referred to a section of the Missouri Constitution pertaining to punishment for lawmakers guilty of “contempt and disorderly conduct,” then gave Chappelle-Nadal an ultimatum: Resign by the date of the upcoming veto session (Sept. 13) or face expulsion from the Senate.
“It is my hope that she will heed to the calls to resign, rather than force her fellow lawmakers to make the decision for her,” Parson said.
