Chuck Ross on October 22, 2019
Former Vice President Joe Biden joined a chorus of Democrats who blasted President Donald Trump on Tuesday for comparing impeachment to “lynching,” but newly unearthed footage shows him making similar remarks about the Republican impeachment of President Bill Clinton in 1998.
“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,” Biden said in an October 1998 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Biden was a senator from Delaware at the time.
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…" pic.twitter.com/6p31OiShYr
— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) October 22, 2019
CNN’s KFILE team unearthed the footage of Biden’s interview.
Earlier on Tuesday, Biden and other presidential candidates blasted Trump for tweeting that he was the victim of a “lynching” at the hands of Democrats.
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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
“Impeachment is not ‘lynching,’ it is part of our Constitution,” Biden responded to Trump on Twitter. “Our country has a dark, shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It’s despicable.”
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
Biden was not the only Democrat to characterize the Clinton impeachment as a “lynching” in 1998. Reps. Danny Davis, Robert Kennedy and Jerry Nadler all used the term to describe the Clinton impeachment.
