No sooner had President Trump likening the impeachment inquiry embroiling his White House to a “lynching” were Democrats accusing him of racism, and worse.
“Horrifying,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said of Trump’s tweet.
“To not understand the history of our country, not understand the scourge of not only slavery, but the fact that lynching happened well beyond slavery, well into the days of people in this body, you know, very well still being here,” AOC told TMZ. “It’s horrifying that he would do this, but also we have to understand that he is using our pain to his advantage as well.
Other Democratic lawmakers reflected her comments.
"Impeachment is not 'lynching,' it is part of our Constitution," Joe Biden tweeted Tuesday. "Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It's despicable."
But Biden is one of many Democrats who themselves likened an impeachment to “lynching.”
In a 1998 appearance on CNN, Joe Biden said of Clinton’s impeachment: “Even if the president should be impeached, history is going to question whether or not this was just a partisan lynching or whether or not it was something that, in fact, met the standard, the very high bar that was set by the Founders as to what constituted an impeachable offense.”
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said in a 1998 floor speech: “What we are doing, what we’re doing here is not a prosecution, it’s a persecution. And indeed, it is a political lynching.”
A week before Christmas in 1998, Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) also likened the impeachment proceedings to a lynching.
“I call this the nightmare before Christmas, and the American people find it difficult to believe,” Davis said. “My people have told me. I will not disregard the people who elected me. 70 percent of them have said to me protect the President, vote to keep this President in office, so I will not vote for this nightmare before Christmas. I will not vote for this lynching in the people’s House.”
And that’s just a sampling. For more, check out the montage above.