Donald Trump’s recent tweet quoting a longtime evangelical pastor who warned of a “Civil War” if Democrats seriously pursue removing him from office could actually be grounds for impeachment, one Harvard Law professor said.

“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 on Sunday night.

The tweet was a quote from Robert Jeffress, a Southern Baptist pastor who gave the comment during an appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend. Trump added his own parenthetical aside to Jeffress’ quote, in which the president asserted that Congress won’t be successful in their impeachment efforts.

The president’s tweet was immediately met with backlash, and Harvard Law professor John Coates argued that the social media post itself is an “independent basis” for lawmakers to remove him from the White House.

“This tweet is itself an independent basis for impeachment – a sitting president threatening civil war if Congress exercises its constitutionally authorized power,” Coates wrote on Twitter on Monday.

This tweet is itself an independent basis for impeachment – a sitting president threatening civil war if Congress exercises its constitutionally authorized power. https://t.co/JL9XzClGXf

— John Coates⚽️ (@jciv) September 30, 2019

But it turns out Trump has some history with revisionist Civil War history.

Back in 2009, Trump bought a golf course in Virginia. He renovated it and rebranded it as one of his “Trump golf” clubs. Between the 14th and 15th holes, according to a New York Times report from November 2015, Trump had a flag pole, stone surface and plaque built to commemorate something called “The River of Blood.”

Ooooh! “The River of Blood”!? Sounds intriguing. So what is it?

“Many great American soldiers, both of the North and South, died at this spot,” the plaque read, per the Times. “The casualties were so great that the water would turn red and thus became known as ‘The River of Blood.'”

“It is my great honor to have preserved this important section of the Potomac River!” reportedly read a second inscription above Trump’s name.

The takeaway, if you take all that at face value: Trump “preserved” a historic section of the Potomac River, one that was a famous and brutal Civil War site that became known by a dramatic nickname, “The River of Blood.”

Except here’s the problem: The Times called at least one local history expert who who had no idea what Trump was talking about.

“No. Uh-uh. No way. Nothing like that ever happened there,” said Richard Gillespie, executive director of the Mosby Heritage Area Association, which educates about and preserves the history of the region that includes Trump’s golf course.

The Times then called Trump back for more explanation. He did not exactly provide receipts. He said he got the information on the plaque from “my people.” Here are a couple quotes from Trump, who is now president of the United States, defending his course’s “River of Blood” plaque.

On the site itself: “That was a prime site for river crossings. So, if people are crossing the river, and you happen to be in a civil war, I would say that people were shot — a lot of them.”

On local historians debunking his plaque: “How would they know? Were they there?”

On the Times asking questions: “Write your story the way you want to write it. You don’t have to talk to anybody. It doesn’t make any difference. But many people were shot. It makes sense.”

The mental contortions required to parse these arguments will make you weep.

Some people were maybe shot at a river crossing, so now we just name it “The River of Blood” 150 years later? Historians, whose profession is studying history, have no credence if they weren’t alive centuries ago to witness that history? Simply saying “it makes sense” is a valid rebuttal for what appears to be a fabricated historical site?

That sort of disjointed thinking and obtuse insistence was weird enough when Trump was seen as little more than a reality TV star and sideshow in the Republican primary.

But now that he’s president — and now that his latest Civil War attack prompted this trip down memory lane — it’s something else entirely. Something much stranger, and something much more sinister.