Donald Trump is under attack from a member of his own party after the president fired off a tweet alluding to a “Civil War” breaking out if he were to be impeached and removed from office.
Trump made the tweet on Sunday, part of a day filled with attacks against Democrats leading an impeachment inquiry into his actions regarding Ukraine. The president earlier in the day had demanded to meet with the whistleblower who first reported Trump for allegedly pressuring Ukraine into investigating Trump’s potential political opponent, Joe Biden.
Late in the evening, Trump tweeted a quote from Pastor Robert Jeffress who warned that Trump’s removal from office would lead to war.
“If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal,” Trump tweeted .
That drew an immediate reaction to Adam Kinzinger, a Republican Congressman from Illinois who issued a sharp rebuke to the president.
“I have visited nations ravaged by civil war,” Kinzinger tweeted . “I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant.”
Members of the Republican Party have rarely spoken out publicly against Donald Trump, who even through scandals and the months-long Russia investigation has maintained near-record high approval ratings from Republican voters.
But more Republicans have split with Trump amid allegations that he pressured the Ukrainian president into investigating the business dealings of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. As The Inquisitr noted, on Friday the first House Republican publicly supported the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s actions. Nevada Congressman Mark Amodei said that he was supporting only the actions to launch an inquiry and was not supporting Trump’s impeachment at this time.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi officially launched the impeachment inquiry that gives the Democrat-controlled committees wider powers to call witnesses and gather evidence. They have already issued subpoenas to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday. The State Department was alleged to have been involved in covering up Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president.
Before his tweet alluding to Civil War, Donald Trump had stoked controversy for a tweet taking aim at House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff that experts interpreted as a threat to have Schiff executed for treason . Trump had written on Twitter that he wanted Schiff to be “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.”