Joe Biden called Bill Clinton impeachment ‘lynching’

President Trump isn’t the only person to compare the impeachment of a president to racist violence against black Americans.

Democratic presidential front-runner Joseph R. Biden, then a U.S. senator from Delaware, called the 1998 impeachment efforts against President Bill Clinton on perjury and obstruction charges “a partisan lynching.”

“Even if the president should be impeached, history is going to question whether or not this was just a partisan lynching” if it didn’t meet the high bar required to remove a president from office, Mr. Biden told Wolf Blitzer of CNN in a clip that Trump spokesmen were circulating in social media Tuesday afternoon.

🚨WOW🚨

JOE BIDEN IN 1998;

“Even if the President should be impeached, history is going to question whether or not this was just a partisan lynching…”

Will Democrats Disavow?pic.twitter.com/VgKZUOM7jv https://t.co/VgKZUOM7jv

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) October 22, 2019

Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump had tweeted that “all Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here — a lynching. But we will WIN!”

Numerous Democrats put out statements of outrage in reaction to Mr. Trump’s comparison.

One of them was Mr. Biden himself.

” Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It’s despicable,” he wrote.

Impeachment is not “lynching,” it is part of our Constitution. Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It’s despicable. https://t.co/QcC25vhNeb

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 22, 2019

Prominent black members of Congress also inveighed against the comparison.

“Of course, he has no understanding of this horrific history, I assume. And for him to say something like that was disgusting,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, California Democrat. “It hurts. It’s painful, and he should apologize.”

Added Rep. Bobby Rush, Illinois Democrat, of Mr. Trump’s tweet: “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.”