White House downplays Trump's 'lynching' tweet
Trump likened the impeachment investigation into his dealings with Ukraine to a "lynching" on Tuesday in a tweet that drew condemnation for his inflammatory reference to decades of killings of thousands of black Americans.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Trump was expressing his feelings.
"The president was clearly articulating the way he feels and the way you guys have treated him from day one," Gidley told reporters at the White House.
Republican Trump issued his comment on Twitter just before Tuesday's closed-door testimony by William Taylor, a U.S. diplomat expected to be an important witness in the inquiry led by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Some Republicans defended Trump's use of the word, instead blaming journalists or Democrats conducting the investigation. Some Republicans have complained about the inquiry's process as carried out by three House committees.
Lynching refers to the murder of thousands of Americans, most of them black, between the 1880s and 1960s, as African-Americans struggled for their rights as U.S. citizens.
Trump's comment was immediately condemned as unbecoming of a president.
Democratic African-American lawmakers said they were not surprised, given Trump's record of inflammatory statements.
Republican Trump issued his comment on Twitter just before Tuesday's closed-door testimony by William Taylor, a U.S. diplomat expected to be an important witness in the inquiry led by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Lawmakers planned to ask Taylor, the acting ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, about Trump's withholding of security assistance for the government in Kiev, which Taylor called "crazy."
"All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching. But we will WIN!" Trump wrote on Twitter.
