President Donald Trump's use of the word "lynching" in a tweet to describe the ongoing impeachment inquiry against him is "very much" offensive and would not have been used by other presidents in connection with the procedure, House Majority Whip James Clyburn said Tuesday.
"The president has also been pretty loose with his words, and this is another indication of that," the South Carolina Democrat and past chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus told CNN's "New Day."
"I really believe this man is prone to inflammatory statements and that is one word no president ought to apply to himself."
Clyburn said he's studied presidential history "quite a bit" and knows that late Presidents Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon would not have described their impeachments as a lynching. Former President Bill Clinton wouldn't have done so either, Clyburn added, "so this president is hopefully an anomaly."
He also pointed out that he's not just a politician, but a southern politician who knows the history of the word lynching, and "that is a word that we ought to be very, very careful about using."
Meanwhile, Clyburn said he believes Tuesday's testimony from Bill Taylor, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, will prove critical about whether the House should move forward with an impeachment vote.
"I personally don't have any questions, but I really feel that in spite of what I may feel, we ought to lay out the facts," he said.
Clyburn added that he would like to see a vote on impeachment before Christmas, but cautioned against lawmakers being "hasty" on the matter and said he wants to see his colleagues do what's necessary to lay out the procedure's foundations.
"I would hope it's before Christmas but it may be after Thanksgiving as well," he said. "I'm not going to put a timeline on it, but that's kind of where I feel."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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