Trump likens Dem-led impeachment inquiry to ‘lynching’
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump triggered outrage Tuesday by comparing the Democratled impeachment inquiry to a lynching, assigning the horrors of a deadly and racist chapter in U.S. history to a process laid out in the Constitution.
“That is one word no president ought to apply to himself,” said Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the highest-ranking African American in Congress. “That is a word that we ought to be very, very careful about using.”
Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., who also is black, called on Trump to delete the tweet.
“Do you know how many people who look like me have been lynched, since the inception of this country, by people who look like you. Delete this tweet,” Rush wrote.
Republican legislators largely tried to put the focus on what they said was the unfair way in which Democrats are conducting the inquiry.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., said Trump’s description was “pretty well accurate.” He called the impeachment effort a “sham” and a “joke” because the president does not know the identity of his accuser, and the process is playing out in private.
“This is a lynching in every sense,” said Graham, who is close to Trump.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the Senate’s only black Republican, agreed with Trump’s sentiment but not his word choice.
“There’s no question that the impeachment process is the closest thing (to) a political death row trial, so I get his absolute rejection of the process,” Scott said, adding, “I wouldn’t use the word lynching.”
Trump tweeted Tuesday: “So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights.”
“All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here — a lynching. But we will WIN!”
A whistleblower’s complaint that Trump was attempting to use his office for personal political gain during a July 25 phone conversation with Ukraine’s president led House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to open the impeachment inquiry.
Impeachment and its process are in the Constitution.