A CNN panel got heated during a post-Christmas discussion when former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter slammed Mitch McConnell and brought up the Ku Klux Klan.

Painter got the ball rolling when he pointed out the Senate impeachment trial is “a trial” and not a “political game.”

“The oath of loyalty is to the United States of America, not to Donald Trump,” he continued on. “These senators, Democrats and Republicans have an obligation to hear the facts, to hear witnesses, and make a decision.”

Then, he said this, slamming the Senate Majority Leader and evoking the Ku Klux Klan: “For Mitch McConnell to say he’s working with the White House, coordinating with the defendant in this trial before the trial has even begun is atrocious. He may think he’s a judge impaneling an all-white jury for a Klansman trial in Mississippi in 1965. That’s not the kind of trial we have.”

Fellow panelist Rick Santorum wasn’t having it, though, interrupting to insist Painter was being “absurd.”

Painter quickly shot back that he was not being absurd, prompting Santorum to say he “was there.”

“I saw what Tom Daschle did in 1998, and I don’t think you were complaining one bit about him carrying the water for the president,” Santorum said. “This is typical, and I think completely appropriate.”

Painter then claimed he didn’t “approve at all” back in 1988 when the president being impeached was Bill Clinton as the debate continued on.

Watch above, via CNN.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2SwgnXR