A Florida teacher has been reassigned after posting hateful messages about Nancy Pelosi on the Parler app.
Art teacher Audrey Betancourt, who taught at Coral Way K-8 Center, spoke to Local 10 about being removed from the school following her comments on the platform. Betancourt says that she was not the one who made the comments.
“I never, ever, ever put my views on anyone or talk about politics,” Betancourt explained. “Nobody knows anything about my politics or anything like that.”
However, the Miami-Dade Public Schools, who confirmed that the educator was being investigated, says that she made the inflammatory comments. The principal at Coral Way ordered the teacher to stay home on Tuesday.
While Betancourt denies making political comments, she does acknowledge that her posts are likely what caused her to be reassigned.
“I felt that I lived in a free society, that I could feel something but as long as I don’t go out and commit that, I can say that. I’m allowed to say that.”
Parler has been shut down following the deadly Capitol riot on January 6th. The app is believed to have been a means of planning the attack by pro-Trump extremists.
Betancourt is said to have posted a video of the Proud Boys. In one post, she quoted Donald Trump‘s “fight like hell” speech, which he delivered in Washington D.C. shortly before the violence ensued. Another post shows a Trump van in Doral, which the teacher suggested could run over Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters. She is also accused of forwarding a message from another user who said, “hang Nancy Pelosi.”
Betancourt defended this message by explaining that treason could be met with a punishment of jail or death. There is no evidence that Pelosi committed treason.
According to prosecutors, many of the violent mobsters who attacked the Capitol had intentions to capture and assassinate elected officials during the siege.
