President Trump Is Going To Be Impeached, the Question Is How Much Damage It Does, by Streiff.
The odds of him being removed from office is very low [because it requires two thirds of the Senate] but the odds of him being impeached by the House of Representatives approaches 100%.
Despite the noises you are hearing from the Democrat party and its Congressional caucus, the House Democrats can’t not impeach Trump for several reasons.
First, they have to even the score for Clinton. …
Second, they want to put an asterisk by Trump’s election. The whole Russia-collusion narrative is being exposed for the utter bullsh** rational people always knew it to be. In its place they are going to use President Trump’s payments to two mistresses as a way of locking in their narrative that Trump won by cheating. As Nadler says, “they were committed in the service of fraudulently obtaining the office.”
Third, their base demands it and will punish them if they don’t.
Fourth, impeachment will take place as the 2020 primary season gets underway and they undoubtedly feel the best campaign advertisement for the Democrats will be lengthy House Judiciary Committee hearings, covered gavel-to-gavel by CNN and MSNBC as well as extensive play in the New York Times and Washington Post, where Trump can be attacked and where there will be virtually no significant coverage of his defenders. If the Senate drags its feet, that will be a further point of attack. If the Senate votes to acquit, yet another vulnerable flank is revealed.
Given the near inevitability of impeachment, how does this play out? Will the impeachment be seen as the political opportunism and revenge that it is or will it be seen as justified? Will it draw out more anti-Trump votes to reward the act? Or will the Democrat base be smoking a cigarette and wiping down with a damp washcloth in the afterglow and just forget to show up?
BTW, it’s not illegal to pay someone hush money. But campaign finance laws are weird, potentially covering all payments “intended to influence an election”.
UPDATE: Trump, Cohen, Impeachment and Indictments, by Karl Denninger.
Then there’s the fact (now known and in the public) that Hillary’s campaign paid for the Steele dossier via a circuitous route with Fusion GPS. That was not disclosed via her FEC filings and it was certainly intended to influence an election, which means that if a felony was committed by the Trump campaign in this regard the same law was violated by Hillary. Where’s the indictment?
Oh by the way, Obama did the same sort of crap during both of his Presidential runs. No, it wasn’t hush money to strippers. It was, however, all sorts of other nefarious political spending to influence an election, all of which is illegal and which, I remind you, he got caught doing. We know this for a fact because the FEC came after him and a huge fine was levied, which was paid, meaning he admitted it. Roughly $2 million dollars worth in Obama’s case.
Did he get indicted, or did anyone else get indicted? No.
Then there’s Clinton. Remember the Chinese bundlers? Very illegal. Dateline 1996. Well north of $100 million was involved, which makes Cohen look like a piker. There was an arrest there — of a Chinese national. There was never anyone in the actual Clinton Administration, including of course the beneficiary of same, one Bill Clinton, who was indicted or imprisoned.
