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Biden in 1998 Called Clinton Impeachment a ‘Partisan Lynching’

Biden in 1998 Called Clinton Impeachment a ‘Partisan Lynching’

(Bloomberg) -- Before Joe Biden blasted Donald Trump on Tuesday for calling his possible impeachment a “lynching,” the Democratic presidential candidate decried Bill Clinton’s impeachment using the same racially tinged term.

He later apologized for what he said on CNN in October 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, then a senator from Delaware, said in the CNN clip that resurfaced on Tuesday.

Biden in 1998 Called Clinton Impeachment a ‘Partisan Lynching’

Earlier Tuesday, Biden dismissed Trump’s tweet by saying “impeachment is not ‘lynching,’ it is part of our Constitution.” He also complained that making the comparison with a lynching was “abhorrent” and “despicable” given its history as a way that white people killed African Americans.

On Tuesday night, Biden tweeted an apology for what he said in 1998, but did not back down in his criticism of the president.

“This wasn’t the right word to use and I’m sorry about that,” Biden wrote. “Trump on the other hand chose his words deliberately today in his use of the word lynching and continues to stoke racial divides in this country daily.”

Other Democrats, including Representative Danny Davis of Illinois and Maxine Waters of California also used the term to describe Clinton’s impeachment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Chelsea Mes, John Harney

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