Fury as Trump compares impeachment inquiry to 'lynching'

Donald Trump referred to impeachment proceedings against him as a “lynching” in a Tuesday morning tweet, sparking condemnation for using such a racially charged word to describe his political predicament.

“So some day,” the president wrote, “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!”

The tweet fit with Trump’s history of racist remarks and his strategic use of cruelty, and some saw in it a political strategy. The tweet drew a chorus of outrage.

“That is one word that no president ought to apply to himself,” the South Carolina representative James Clyburn, the House majority whip, said on CNN. “I’m not a just a politician … I’m a product of the south. I know the history of that word.”

The California representative Karen Bass, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told CNN that Trump’s “lynching” tweet was consistent with his pattern of throwing out “racial bombs” to give “red meat” to his base when his back his against the wall, network correspondent Manu Raju said.

“You think this impeachment is a LYNCHING?” tweeted the Illinois representative Bobby Rush. “What the hell is wrong with you? 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.”