Trump will be impeached before Christmas by the House: Analyst

The House held its first public hearings on Wednesday in its impeachment inquiry into allegations that Trump asked a foreign government to investigate a domestic political rival.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Trump had admitted to actions that amount to “bribery” in the Ukraine scandal, accusing the Republican president of an impeachable offense under the Constitution.

The US Constitution states that impeachable offenses include “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors”. What exactly that means is unclear. Historically, it can encompass corruption and other abuses, including trying to obstruct judicial proceedings.

Lendman told Press TV that the whole ugly impeachment business “is a scam.”

“It’s being done for political reasons only.  What the Dems want? Dems are angry at Trump because he won the election he was supposed to lose to the media darling, Hillary. But he won and she lost. This is revenge. They started with Russiagate…[but] there was nothing in it.  Nothing illegal or improper with Russia, no obstruction of justice. So that one flopped,” he added.

“So they came up with the second scam. So they came with a second scam.  The scam number two is Ukrainegate, trying to get Trump on what he may have done in relation with the president of Ukraine. Well, whatever Trump did with the president of Ukraine is what all US presidents do with many presidents of other countries,” he noted.

“The real issue in this is Trump won an election he was supposed to lose. Dems want revenge. They are cooking up whatever they can to go after him. He absolutely will be impeached by the House, probably before the end of the year, likely before Christmas in the US, but the Senate controlled by the Republicans will not remove him from office. No US president has ever been removed from office by impeachment,” the analyst said.

“What the Dems want is not to remove him from office, but to weaken him, they are making him vulnerable to defeat in the 2020 US presidential election. That’s the objective of the Dems. That’s what they want to achieve, not removing him from office. If they remove him, and they get Pence, then maybe they will lose to him,” he pointed out.

Only two American presidents have been impeached by the House, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Neither Johnson nor Clinton was convicted by the Senate.

In 1974, then US President Richard Nixon resigned in the face of certain impeachment and removal from office over the Watergate scandal.

Clinton on Thursday advised Trump to ignore impeachment and focus on the job he was hired for.

“My message would be, look, you got hired to do a job,” Clinton said during a phone interview with CNN on Thursday. “You don’t get the days back you blow off. Every day is an opportunity to make something good happen.”

“And I would say, ‘I’ve got lawyers and staff people handling this impeachment inquiry, and they should just have at it,'” continued Clinton who was impeached by the GOP-controlled House in 1998. “Meanwhile, I’m going to work for the American people. That’s what I would do.”