Mayor of Salem slams Trump after the president compares the impeachment inquiry to the Salem witch trials

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Mayor of Salem slams Trump after the president compares the impeachment inquiry to the Salem witch trials
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Guatemala's President Jimmy Morales in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., December 17, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
  • On the eve of the House impeachment vote, President Donald Trump wrote a wild letter to House Speaker Pelosi condemning the impeachment process as a whole, saying that "more due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials."
  • Mayor of Salem Kim Driscoll fact-checked the president, saying that he should "learn some history" before comparing his impeachment inquiry to the witch trials.
  • "The whole point of the trials was that there was no rule of law, and you're talking about fairly marginalized people who were accused victims," Driscoll told CNN's Don Lemon, "versus 2019, we've got expressions of wrongdoing, we've got transcripts, we've got a rule of law - in fact, the most important rule of law, the Constitution of the United States - that's serving as a guide."
  • The House drafted two articles of impeachment last week against the president that will be voted on Wednesday, charging the president with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The mayor of Salem wrote that President Donald Trump should "learn some history" after he compares the impeachment inquiry to the Salem witch trials in a six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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On the eve of the House impeachment vote, Trump wrote a wildly inaccurate letter to Pelosi condemning the impeachment process as a whole, saying that "more due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials."

Mayor Kim Driscoll quoted a tweet with the segment of Trump's letter, fact-checking the president's historical perspective.

Driscoll appeared on CNN Tonight to elaborate on her tweet, explaining the differences that she believes the president has failed to see with his comparison.

"The whole point of the trials was that there was no rule of law, and you're talking about fairly marginalized people who were accused victims," Driscoll told CNN's Don Lemon. "They were women, they were elderly, they were poor... Anyone who was different or odd in any way shape or form."

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"Versus 2019, we've got expressions of wrongdoing, we've got transcripts, we've got a rule of law - in fact, the most important rule of law, the Constitution of the United States - that's serving as a guide," she continued.

She went on to say that Trump paralleling the impeachment inquiry to the witch trials could be construed as "offensive" to the descendants of those who were executed without due process.

"It's really disheartening. You never think you have to retell this history to a leader of this country, but to see both the president and his supporters using the witch trials is offensive to the descendants, those victims," Driscoll said on the news segment. "Their legacy is being twisted in this way to sort of portray an innocent victim, when in fact, we're going to have a pretty fair process."

The House drafted two articles of impeachment, charging the president with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. After being voted on in the House Judiciary Committee, the articles of impeachment will be debated and voted on in the full House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Since the start of the impeachment inquiry, Trump has vehemently denied that he misused his power in order to pressure a foreign country to investigate a political opponent, 2020 presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden. He has repeatedly called the inquiry (along with the Muller investigation before it) a "witch hunt."

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