A government shutdown, a volatile stock market, questionable foreign policy decisions. These are some of the factors journalist Elizabeth Drew cited in a New York Times op-ed that says it’s all but guaranteed that President Donald Trump will be impeached after Democrats take control of the House of Representatives, unless he takes a cue from President Richard Nixon and leaves on his own.
“An impeachment process against President Trump now seems inescapable,” said Drew, who covered the Watergate scandal that led to Nixon’s resignation. “Unless the president resigns, the pressure by the public on the Democratic leaders to begin an impeachment process next year will only increase.”
Democrats won’t be the only ones on board, Drew predicted, claiming that members of the GOP may now believe it is in their party’s or their own best interest to turn against the president, should the opportunity arise.
“It always seemed to me that Mr. Trump’s turbulent presidency was unsustainable and that key Republicans would eventually decide that he had become too great a burden to the party or too great a danger to the country,” Drew said. “That time may have arrived. In the end the Republicans will opt for their own political survival.”
Drew pointed to recent events to support the idea that there could be enough votes in the Senate to remove the president if he is impeached, although she admitted that even before the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation, she believed there was enough evidence to support impeachment.
“The odor of personal corruption on the president’s part — perhaps affecting his foreign policy — grew stronger,” she observed. “Then the events of the past several days — the president’s precipitous decision to pull American troops out of Syria, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’s abrupt resignation, the swoon in the stock market, the pointless shutdown of parts of the government — instilled a new sense of alarm among many Republicans.”
So dire is the current situation, Drew claimed, that it “seems to have only two possible outcomes.” She was, of course, referring to impeachment or a Nixon-like resignation. Developments from the Southern District of New York’s case against Michael Cohen could play a large role in this. With Cohen seemingly implicating Trump in crimes related to campaign finance violations, Trump could potentially face criminal charges when he leaves office if he loses the next election. That is, unless he reaches a deal to resign as part of a deal not to be charged, she suggested.
“Facing an assortment of unpalatable possibilities, including being indicted after he leaves office, Mr. Trump will be looking for a way out. ”
[Image via NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images]
