Why Trump’s lynching comment drew outrage now, and not when Joe Biden and others used it in the ’90s

When President Trump claimed this week that an impeachment inquiry amounts to a “lynching,” it was a major controversy, with Democrats (and some Republicans) condemning his words.

But a couple hours later that same day, it surfaced that some Democratic members of Congress used the term “lynch” in the 1990s to defend President Bill Clinton from impeachment, including then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and the lawmaker who would be in charge of writing up articles of impeachment against Trump, House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold E. Nadler (D-N.Y.). As far as we can tell, there wasn’t a massive outcry the way there was Tuesday against Trump. The Fix’s JM Rieger reports:

Biden apologized for using the term but claimed that the way Trump used it was worse.