Graham: Impeachment Inquiry a 'Sham,' Trump's Right, This Is a 'Lynching'
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on Tuesday backed up President Donald Trump’s assessment that the Democrat-run impeachment inquiry is a “lynching,” adding it is a “sham.”
Asked what he thought of Trump’s characterization of the impeachment inquiry as a lynching, Graham responded, “I think that’s pretty well accurate.”
“This is a sham. This is a joke,” he added. “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 … This is a lynching in every sense. This is un-American.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham: “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… This is a lynching in every sense. This is un-American.” https://t.co/XLB6He9AAU pic.twitter.com/g4i0jVg48X
— The Hill (@thehill) October 22, 2019
Graham, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, promised that should the House vote to impeach Trump, he would do everything he could “to make sure it doesn’t live very long in the Senate,” The Hill reported.
Trump tweeted earlier in the day that Democrats are denying him “due process” and “legal rights” in their inquiry into his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“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,” he wrote.
“All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!”
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
Graham identified some of those rights to reporters.
“I’ve never seen a situation in my lifetime as a lawyer where somebody is accused of a major misconduct who cannot confront the accuser, call witnesses on their behalf and have the discussion in the light of day so the public can judge,” he said.
Pressed again on Trump’s use of the word “lynching,” Graham did not back down.
“I think lynching is being seen as somebody taking the law in their own hands and out to get somebody for no good reason,” he said.
When asked if he understood why some African-Americans would take offense at the comparison, the South Carolina senator held his ground.
“Yes, African-Americans have [been] lynched,” Graham said. “Other people have been lynched throughout history. What does lynching mean? That a mob grabs you, they don’t give you a chance to defend yourself, they don’t tell you what happened to you, they just destroy you. That’s exactly what’s happening in the United States House of Representatives right now,” Graham said.
“In every sense, this is a mob taking over the rule of law. This is fundamentally un-American and until it changes, I will fight back as hard as I can,” he continued.
Graham later clarified that he was speaking of a “political lynching” and the political death that accompanies someone who is impeached.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only African-American Republican currently serving in the Senate, also agreed that the process House Democrats were employing was not fair to Trump, but stopped short of calling it a lynching.
“There’s no question that the impeachment process is the closest thing of a political death row trial, so I get [Trump’s] absolute rejection of the process,” Scott said, adding, “I wouldn’t use the word lynching.”
Breitbart reported that while many Democrats expressed outrage at Trump’s word choice, current House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York likened the 1998 Bill Clinton impeachment to a “lynch mob.”
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