Outcome (resignation, charge dropped, not guilty, guilty)
I’m going for Inauguration +5, i.e. 25th January.
Plain guess; it will come out of the House of Rep
I have no great expertise but I’d imagine the GOP has to be the instigator. Can they get him on tax grounds - seems likely as someone in Trump’s position has almost certainly been economical with his disclosures … anything else, association with a foreign power maybe?
He’ll kick and scream and hang on the edge of the desk but, in the end, he will resign ‘in the interests of the country’.
Impeachment, by definition, is a process started by the House of Representatives, and must be confirmed by a two-thirds majority of the senate in order to remove someone from office.
True dat. I can’t think of an act so heinous that it would motivate the Republican-controlled house to initiate impeachment proceedings against their rubber-stamp president. This is especially true early in the first year, while they are passing every law they’ve wet-dreamed over for the past eight years.
Impeachment is a stupid Democratic fantasy. The Republican party will not ever want to go down in modern history as having the only successfully impeached President.
Trump is a wild card–who knows whether he will really be a rubber-stamp or go off on some completely different track? He’s not ever been a textbook Republican or strong adherent to the GOP party line, and his ego may prevent him from accepting the role of rubber-stamp.
Pence, now there’s a true believer who has been sharing those wet dreams since his own days in the House.
A year ago, I firmly believed there was no way in hell the GOP elites would allow him to get the nomination. They’d let him weed out the nutjobs, then they’d shut him down and anoint Jeb! or Rubio. But here we are. So…
I’m going with “not gonna happen”. As long as the GOP control the house, the only way they’d turn on him is if he goes so far off he makes the GOP brand toxic enough to lose the Senate or the House in 2018. And if they lose the House, they won’t be in a position to impeach, and the Democrats won’t do anything as they’ll bend over backwards (amazingly easy when one lacks a spine) to be “bipartisan”, leaving their collective nuts exposed for another set of swift kicks.
Even the coming depression and curtailment of civil rights will not start the impeachment process.
One possible exception: The US experiences a cataclysmic event that Trump should have prepared the country, and fucks up the response on a monumental scale. The only one that comes to mind is war. I still don’t know if war with be a major regional war (terrorism) or worse (China and maybe Russia), the latter impeachment proceedings delayed because of the utter destruction of the country.
There is 0 chance of impeachment for 2 years. After that I’d give it 50/50 in year 3 and back to 0 in year four so overall I’d guess somewhat less then 10% chance of him being impeached at all.
That being said if it were to happen it would involve a wave election in 2018 that flipped the House and Senate with people primarily campaigning on “Impeach the moron”. If that was the case it would probably happen shortly there after. I’d guess January 20, 2019, obviously started in The House for Conflicts of Interests (I know in theory it doesn’t apply to the pres but High crimes and misdemeanors are whatever the house says they are). I don’t know even if a wave election that could flip the House could flip the Senate the way the election is looking today but in this highly unlikely scenario I’ll go with it flipped so Guilty.
On a side note there is zero chance of Trump leaving the white house unless he’s forced so resigning isn’t going to happen.
5 days is not realistic in my view. I think he could get impeached within the next two years but something would have to surface that was trending so toxic in the public view that it would be risk to those seeking re-election in 2018. That will be the litmus test for the next two years. The Republican congressman will be watching how the Trump is trending. If it goes toxic they’ll find something, it certainly won’t be hard.
If the Democrats get the House and Senate in 2018, the odds of impeachment rise, but I still think the deciding factor will be public opinion. Overall though, if I had to hazard a guess, Trump will not be impeached. The Democrats will not regain the House in 2018 and so no impeachment will occur.