'Learn some history': Mayor of Salem, Mass., blasts Trump over witch trials

The mayor of Salem, Massachusetts, said President Donald Trump needs to "learn some history" after he claimed those accused in the city's infamous 17th century witch trials received more due process than he has in the House impeachment inquiry.

Mayor Kim Driscoll, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday that the trials in 1692 included "powerless, innocent victims" who were "hanged or pressed to death" on scant evidence.

Twenty people suspected of witchcraft were killed in Salem, a coastal city about 20 miles north of Boston, during a frenzy stoked by superstition, fear of disease and strangers, and jealousy. Nineteen were hanged, and one man was crushed by rocks.

Trump, Driscoll said, is a powerful world leader and the allegations against him come with "ample evidence" and "admissions of wrongdoing."

"Right, will they ever learn some history?" Driscoll wrote in a follow-up tweet. "This situation is much different than the plight of the witch trial victims, who were convicted using spectral evidence + then brutally hanged or pressed to death. A dubious legal process that bears no relation to televised impeachment."