Trump likens House impeachment inquiry to ‘a lynching’

WASHINGTON — Stirring up painful memories of America’s racist past, President Donald Trump on Tuesday compared the Democraticled impeachment inquiry to a lynching, a practice once widespread across the South in which angry mobs killed thousands of black people.

The use of such inflammatory imagery to lash out at the House investigation into Trump’s dealings with Ukraine triggered an outcry from Democratic legislators, some mild rebukes but also some agreement from the president’s Republican allies and condemnation from outside the Washington Beltway. It also led to the unearthing of decades-old comments from some Democratic lawmakers, including now-presidential candidate Joe Biden, comparing the pro

cess of impeaching President Bill Clinton to a lynching.

Trump has spent recent days pressuring Republicans to give him stronger support in countering the impeachment investigation.

His tweeted suggestion that they “remember what they are witnessing here — a lynching” came a day after Trump said the GOP needs to “get tougher and fight” against the fast-moving inquiry into whether he tried to withhold U.S. military aid until Ukraine’s government agreed to investigate Democrat Joe Biden and his son.

The White House said later Tuesday that Trump was not comparing impeachment to “one of the darkest moments in American history.” Spokesman Hogan Gidley said Trump sent the tweet to point out what he feels is his continued mistreatment by the news media.

Trump, who has been complaining about unfairness in the impeachment process being led by House Democrats began his tweet: “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.”

Fighting back Tuesday night, Trump’s reelection campaign tweeted out a 1998 video of then-Sen. Biden talking about President Bill Clinton’s impending impeachment and saying, in part, “History is going to question whether or not this was just a partisan lynching.”

Earlier in the day, Biden referred to Trump’s lynching comparison as “abhorrent” and “despicable.” His Democratic presidential campaign declined to comment on his 1998 statements.

The reference to a lynching struck a deep, painful chord for black people whose relatives died in racially motivated killings.

Janet Langhart Cohen told The Associated Press that Trump is among too many white people who have disrespected lynching victims and their descendants. Her distant cousin Jimmy Gillenwaters was lynched in Kentucky in the early 1900s.

Trump “knows what he’s doing. He knows how to hurt and divide,” said Cohen, the wife of former Republican Sen. William Cohen of Maine.

Trump’s closest Republican backers in Congress agreed with him, though others rejected his comparison.

“This is a lynching in every sense,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.