With his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, going to jail and his long-time lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, pleading guilty to accusations of helping Trump silence a porn star and a Playboy playmate, the pressure on president Trump is increasing, Han de Jong, Chief Economist at ABN AMRO.
Key Quotes
“People have started to talk about impeachment and the president has said that it would be strange to get rid of someone who has done a good job. That must be typical Trumpian logic.”
“It is perhaps good to remind ourselves that it is difficult to force a US president out of office. It is a Congressional procedure. And that makes it political. Most members of Congress will support a president of their own party, unless the facts and the evidence are so bad that they simply can’t support their own president.”
“Removal of a US president starts with an impeachment by the House. A simple majority of the House can impeach a president by finding the president guilty of “treason, bribery or other crimes and misdemeanors”. The Republicans currently have a majority in the House, but all seats are going to be contested in the November elections. An impeachment by the House does not force the President out of office.”
“Only if a two-thirds majority of the Senate finds the president guilty is he/she forced out of the White House. Republicans currently hold 51 Senate seats, the Democrats 47 and there are two independents. 33 of the 100 Senate seats will be contested in November, but 24 of those are currently held by Democrats. It will therefore be completely impossible for the Democrats to get a two-thirds majority in the Senate. President Trump can thus only be forced out if a relatively large number of Republican senators vote against him.”
“At this stage, this looks extremely unlikely. When Bill Clinton was impeached by the House in 1998, all Democratic senators supported him. Even though the Republicans then had a majority in the Senate, their majority was not big enough and Clinton was acquitted.”
“Looking at the alleged facts of the collusion case against Trump, my guess is that an impeachment procedure is possible and probably likely if the Democrats win a House majority. But I still think that removal of the president is unlikely.”
“This will have an impact on financial markets as the impeachment process will create uncertainty and probably also unexpected developments, not to mention aggressive and stinging tweets from the president.”
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