8 Reasons It Looks Like Trump Could Actually Get Impeached
March 28, 2017 Marc Belisle Politics
As Donald Trump’s presidency grinds into its third month, every week has seen issues that stem from either the White House or the Republican Congress pushing their agenda. But no matter what Washington is trying to work on, the investigation into the connections between Trump and Russia are never far from the fore. Senator John McCain aptly compared the investigation to a “centipede” with “a lot of shoes to drop.” Indeed, every few days there’s a new revelation.
Yet, as Roger Stone, a key Trump surrogate who was aware of Wikileaks’ stolen information about Hillary Clinton before it was released, has said, “They have no proof…” This, notably, is not exactly the same as saying there is no proof. At the moment, there is no smoking gun that could bring down Trump. But in recent days, the momentum of the investigation has begun shifting in a direction that suggests it’s possible that it could all come crashing down around the White House, in such a way that even the Republican Congress which is steadfastly looking the other way, would have to respond. Here are 8 reasons why Trump could actually get impeached.
1. Calls For Nunes To Recuse Himself ExpandIt has become inescapably obvious that Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is not investigating Trump’s ties to Russia in good faith. Republicans may have already known this since he was on Trump’s transition team. But since he scurried to the White House with information he didn’t even share with his committee, and a “ dead-of-night excursion” to meet a secret source he refuses to name the night before, the optics of his holding the position have become a problem for the GOP.
Unsurprisingly, Democrats have called on Nunes to resign his chairmanship, recuse himself from the investigation, or for House Speaker Paul Ryan to replace him. More significantly, perhaps, is the first Republican to join this Democratic chorus, North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones, who said, “The integrity of the committee looking into this has been tainted.” Nevertheless, other Republicans, including Ryan, refused to consider asking Nunes to recuse himself from the Russia probe, Tuesday.
2. The White House Tried To Block Sally Yates From TestifyingThe Washington Post reported Tuesday that the White House attempted to embargo former acting Attorney General Sally Yates’s testimony to Congress, citing “presidential communication privilege.” Yates was the acting Attorney General who sought to warn the White House that National Security Adviser Mike Flynn was exposed to potential blackmail by foreign interests, and who was fired by Trump. Yates responded to the White House that she still intended to testify. Nunes canceled her slated hearings shortly thereafter, leaving the House Intelligence Committee treading water with no slated hearings for at least a week. Former top CIA and State Department official Jeremy Bash called this series of events “an elaborately choreographed gag order on Sally Yates.”
3. Flynn Might Have Cut A Deal With The FBIOn CNN, analyst, Harvard Professor and former Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem said that evidence is mounting that Flynn may have cut a deal with the FBI. His name was not included among former Trump surrogates who would be willing to talk to the Committee off the record, a list that included Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Paul Manafort. Flynn would know quite a lot about what was going on, in the campaign, the transition, the early days of the White House, and in foreign countries that had contracted him to lobby for them, including Turkey and Russia.
Trump media allies appear to be sweating this. The National Enquirer, which is owned by longtime friend of Trump, David Pecker, and which was doing serious propaganda work for Trump during the election, recently published an article describing Flynn as a Russian spy. Why would Flynn go from golden boy to persona non grata so suddenly unless he had become a major liability? The National Enquirer may not move a lot of minds in Washington, but it could have a surprising amount of influence among diehard Trump voters who get most of their news while waiting to pay for their groceries, and that might be enough to scare right wing House Republicans.
4. ‘More Than Circumstantial’ Evidence Of Trump-Russia CollusionAdam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said recently said that there is “ more than circumstantial” evidence that Trump surrogates coordinated with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. He said he couldn’t elaborate further, so this could be partisan rhetoric. But given everything else that is known, this would hardly be surprising. Shortly thereafter, CNN reported that the FBI was indeed investigating evidence that Trump officials had extensive communications with Russian officials during the campaign, and leading up to the release of information gathered by the Russian cyber espionage campaign against the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.
5. Kushner Is Getting Sucked Into The VortexIn an apparent effort to get ahead of leaks, the White House voluntarily announced early in March that Jared Kushner had met with Russian officials during the transition. Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, has emerged as one of the administration’s top power brokers. Kushner was recently tapped to head a commission to radically reorganize the Executive branch of government, modeled on a corporation. On Tuesday, Talking Points Memo observed that the Trump team’s story about how and why Kushner met with the Russians has diverged from the Russians’ story about the meeting,
“While the bank and the Kremlin said Kushner held the talks in his capacity as the head of his family’s real estate empire, Kushner Companies, the Trump administration struck a different note, saying Kushner was acting as a campaign surrogate at the time.”
The fact that the scandal is now in Trump’s own family, and in the inner circle of his nepotistic power structure means that mere aggressive firing can’t make new any revelations go away if Kushner becomes as exposed as Flynn or Jeff Sessions.
Related: YIKES! Trump Son-In-Law, Tapped To ‘Overhaul’ Gov’t, Says Citizens Are Just ‘Customers’6. Russia Is Trying To Kill StoriesApart from the Russian diplomats who are mysteriously meeting untimely ends, Russia has also begun seeking to silence stories in the Western media. The Washington Post reported that last week, the AP published a scoop about Paul Manafort and Oleg Deripaska. Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager (and a former strategist for the former pro-Putin president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych). Manafort met with Deripaska, a Russian billionaire, in 2005. The two reportedly agreed to a plan to work to promote Vladimir Putin’s political and business interests in the West. Deripaska responded to the AP‘s story, “I demand that any and all further dissemination of these allegations, by the AP or any other media outlet, must cease immediately.” Ha! Who does he think he is? The Post aptly points out that that’s not how reporting works here in the US. But Putin critics have been silenced permanently beyond Russia’s borders before, so it would be naive to think the threat is merely idle.
7. The White House Is Desperate To Make This Go Away CNN reported that in Tuesday’s press briefing, Press Secretary Sean Spicer responded to questions about the Russia investigation, “If the President puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s a Russia connection,”
Holy lame response, Batman! Seriously? That’s the best the communications geniuses in the White House can come up with? That’s not reframing the narrative and capturing the momentum. That’s the last gurgle of a president drowning in a riptide of scandal.
8. Trump’s Popularity Is CrashingTrump’s approval rating is in the gutter, and according to Gallup polling, it looks like it could be in free fall. While this is not directly germane to the Russia investigation, it could be the deciding factor of how the investigation affects the Trump presidency. If Trump’s unpopularity becomes radioactive, Republicans facing a menacing reelection battle or anti-Trump primary challengers, may hop on board a more serious bipartisan investigation, or back an independent commission that could finally get to the bottom of the story.
These 8 dynamics, which are all currently in play, together create an emerging picture. There is almost certainly something in this investigation that is being hidden from public view. Whatever it is, both the White House and Russia seem increasingly desperate to make sure that the American people never see it. And the momentum is trending away from them. As long as the White House has seemingly obedient lackeys like Devin Nunes holding down the positions of power to investigate like the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, the President holds the reins of the investigation, even if it is a bucking bronco threatening to toss him clear. But any false move, any taint of corruption so severe that it would threaten the Republicans’ House majority, and something big could break. If Nunes loses his seat, if Flynn starts singing a very insightful song to the FBI, if the press keeps putting pieces together, if Kushner gets trapped by inconsistencies in his story, the White House’s tenuous grasp on Washington could begin to quickly unravel. Republicans worried about their reelection prospects could get very antsy about the Trump presidency. |
