Maxine Waters receives 'very serious' death threat on same day as Capital Gazette shootings

Congresswoman says “even more individuals are leaving threatening messages and sending hostile mail to my office"

California congresswoman Maxine Waters said she had received death threats. (AP)

A member of the US House of Representatives whose call for the harassment of Trump administration officials earned her the opprobrium of right-wingers has cancelled events in Texas and Alabama after a “very serious death threat” was made against her.

Maxine Waters, the Democratic party representative for California, said in a statement that after criticism from Mr Trump, “even more individuals are leaving threatening messages and sending hostile mail to my office.”

Taking to Twitter, Mr Trump called Ms Waters “an extraordinarily low IQ person”, warning her to “be careful what you wish for."

“There was one very serious death threat made against me on Monday from an individual in Texas which is why my planned speaking engagements in Texas and Alabama were cancelled this weekend,” Ms Waters said.

She added that Capitol Police in Washington DC are investigating several other threats in which people have vowed “to shoot, lynch, or cause me serious bodily harm.”

Ms Waters had been scheduled to speak at the annual legislative conference of the National Organisation of Black Elected Legislative Women in Birmingham, Alabama.

The organisation’s president, Karen Camper, told the Alabama news website AL.com that Ms Waters had cancelled her appearance because of security concerns.

The details of Ms Waters’s Texas event are not immediately known.

Eva Malecki, a spokeswoman for Capitol Police, said the department does not comment on ongoing investigations.

News of the alleged threats against Ms Waters came on the same day that a gunman opened fire in the offices of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, killing five people and gravely injuring several others.

On his radio show, Fox News host Sean Hannity appeared to suggest that Ms Waters was partly responsible for the shooting.

“I’ve been saying now for days that something horrible was going to happen because of the rhetoric,” he said. “Really, Maxine?”

The Washington Post