Washington (AFP) - Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader, said Tuesday that President Donald Trump's comparison of the congressional impeachment inquiry to a "lynching" was an "unfortunate choice of words."
"Given the history in our country, I would not compare this to a lynching," McConnell told reporters. "That was an unfortunate choice of words."
At the same time, the Republican from Kentucky said Trump had a "legitimate complaint" about the inquiry by the Democratic-led House of Representatives over alleged abuse of power.
"It is an unfair process and a better way to characterize it would be to call it an unfair process," he said.
McConnell has rarely openly criticized Trump but his latest comments came just days after he condemned the president's pullout of US troops from Syria, a move he called a "grave strategic mistake."
In a tweet Tuesday, Trump complained about the impeachment inquiry, saying "All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here -- a lynching."
More than 3,400 African Americans were lynched between 1882 and 1968, and congressional Democrats reacted with collective revulsion to Trump's remark.
Few Republican lawmakers openly criticized Trump for his comment, but Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican and occasional Trump critic who is up for re-election in 2020, spoke out.
"'Lynching' brings back images of a terrible time in our nation's history, and the President never should have made that comparison," she tweeted.
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