By Clare Foran | CNN
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday did not endorse President Donald Trump’s comparison of the impeachment inquiry to a “lynching,” saying, “That’s not the language I would use” and “I don’t agree with that language, it’s pretty simple.”
McCarthy did not go so far as to explicitly condemn the President’s statement, however, and went on to criticize the impeachment investigation itself.
“It’s very clear that what the Democrats are doing here does not have due process, is not fair in the process, is not something that this House has done ever in the past,” McCarthy said when asked to respond to the comment.
The President on Tuesday called House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry a “lynching,” employing a term associated with the extrajudicial killings of African-Americans while calling on Republicans to aid his political defense.
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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2019
“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!” the President tweeted.
Trump has repeatedly railed against the probe, calling it a “witch hunt” and a “fraud,” but Tuesday marks his first use of the term “lynching,” which is associated with a period of horrific racial violence in the United States, in regard to the inquiry. Following Emancipation and the Civil War, killings, often carried out in public settings, known as lynchings, terrorized newly freed black Americans. Thousands of citizens were killed this way.
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Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who is up for reelection in 2020, said that Trump “never should have made that comparison.”
“‘Lynching’ brings back images of a terrible time in our nation’s history, and the President never should have made that comparison,” Collins tweeted.
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who is also running for reelection, refused to defend the President’s use of the word “lynching” to describe the impeachment inquiry on, but did not outright condemn the language either.
“I would not have chosen those same words,” Cornyn said.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois was also critical, calling on the President to “retract” his remarks “immediately.”
“We can all disagree on the process, and argue merits. But never should we use terms like ‘lynching’ here. The painful scourge in our history has no comparison to politics, and
@realDonaldTrump should retract this immediately. May God help us to return to a better way,” the congressman tweeted.
Defended by Graham
Some Republicans, however, have defended the President’s comment.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, defended the tweet.
“I think that’s pretty well accurate,” Graham told reporters. “This is a sham. This is a joke. I’m going to let the whole world know that if we were doing this to a Democratic President you would be all over me right now.”
“So yeah this is a lynching, in every sense. This in un-American,” Graham said.
When Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio was asked if Trump’s “lynching” tweet was appropriate, he said: “the President is frustrated.”