Q&A of the Day –Would impeachment benefit President Trump? - Part 1
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry...
What are your thoughts about this line of thinking?
By: Hyram F.Suddfluffel, PhD, (Political Science)
1. The House can pass articles of impeachment over the objections of the Republicans and refer to the Senate for trial.
2. The Senate will conduct a trial. There will be a vote, and the Republicans will vote unanimously, along with a small number of Democrats, to not convict the President. Legally, it will all be over at that point.
3. During the trial, and this is what no one is thinking about right now, the President's attorneys will have the right to subpoena and question ANYONE THEY WANT! That is different than the special counsel investigation, which was very one-sided. So, during the impeachment trial, we will be hearing testimony from James Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, Glenn Simpson, Donna Brazille, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch, Christopher Steele, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, and a whole host of other participants
So, let's move on to impeachment.
Bottom Line: With the public hearings underway today, there’s wide ranging thought about what will happen and what the implications would be. Implementing the 180-degree theory, is this depiction of what would happen should President Trump be impeached. It’s in line with the mindset that impeachment would be of benefit to President Trump – which using history as a guide, may well be the case. I’ll go along with this exercise because it does allow an illustration of a few important points in this process.
On the first, notion. Yes, correct, Democrats hold a 37-seat advantage over Republicans in the House, although they only can lose 16 (or potentially 17 based on the independent vote) if all Republicans voted against impeachment. Something that shouldn’t be taken for granted, is that the Democrats flipped 41 House seats in 2018. Democrats would need, at least, more than half of those freshman to vote to impeach for it to clear the House if Republicans were united against it. This isn’t a given. Be mindful that these freshman seats were held by Republicans in 2016 with President Trump at the top of the ticket. With Trump’s name on the 2020 ballot next year, an impeachment vote against Trump has the potential to be path of least resistance to Republicans regaining control of the House. Nancy Pelosi is no fool. If she doesn’t have the votes or if she thinks that will be the outcome – this will never come to an impeachment vote in the House. I think it’s no more than a 50-50 proposition that the President is impeached. But, to continue with the second point if were to occur... I’ll pick that thought up in the second part of today’s Q&A.
Here's the link to continue with the story: https://wjno.iheart.com/featured/brian-mudd/content/2019-11-13-would-impeachment-benefit-president-trump-part-2/