Will Trump be impeached?
This might seem like wild speculation, but hear me out.
Donald Trump has some business interests which create complications for him. (For him to simply divest them is harder than it might seem; two solutions have been proposed, and both are quite fallible:
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He could simply put his assets into a blind trust, but the dozens of international buildings which bear his authorized name and brand, but which he has no real stake in, could be annoying nuances. To compare, Rex Tillerson is easily divesting all of his stake in ExxonMobil, but there's no 'Tillerson Tower' which looks over big cities in nations which have complicated relationships with the United States. He just has a lot of different stuff, which would be hard to just ditch.
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He could, as he is proposing, entrust his businesses to his children, keeping their last name and all, but these are the same children who are actively participating in his transition. (Ivanka is privy to diplomatic meetings and will temporarily inherit the First Lady's office.) So it wouldn't be a blind trust, and nepotism could run high.
These two ideas could fix some problems, but neither would divorce him in any real capacity from his accomplished corporate past. And America's least favorite political grandmother is putting away the 17th century knitting equipment and throwing down her consumer-protection gauntlet to spar with the PEOTUS.
That's right - Elizabeth Warren, the obvious 2020 contender who's taking all the opportunities she can in her predictable path to the White House, is already levying impeachment charges against Donald Trump.
She's doing so knowing the exploitable business conflicts ("emoluments", as the Constitution calls them) which could spell doom for the Donald. And she also knows the unstable position he will be in as President.
While many, like myself, expected Trump to be essentially a puppet for the GOP, he's already sparred with them on Twitter and is commanding them to change their priorities. He isn't even really conservative, in the usual sense, lacking the entrenched Republicanism of people like Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and, wait for it...Mike Pence.
The Republicans have every incentive to kick Trump out if they can. Trump is historically unpopular, and could be seen as a burden on the party. He conflicts with them on various issues, and shows resolve in many core plans. His loud character is seen as a liability by many Republican juggernauts. And his Vice President would fall in line with most everything suggested by Ryan, McConnell and the gang.
The means and the method are there, so will Trump get impeached, and thrown out in favor of a new President Pence?
Posted Jan 5, 2017, 10:46 PM UTC