Why Trump will not be impeached

This is the most common question after a court convicted one of his lawyers, Michael Cohen, and Paul Manafort who was his presidential campaign chairman for a short period of time. The answer is that these two incidents will not impeach Trump because they are not of the heavy weight required to impeach an American president.

Paul Manafort was pursued and besieged by the team of the special counsel Robert Mueller who is looking into Moscow’s meddling in American elections and whether there’s collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.

The investigation did not come up with anything in this regard but Manafort was convicted with other charges related to tax evasion and bank fraud. Yes, he’s convicted in eight major cases but Trump and his campaign has nothing to do with his problems and corruption, therefore, he will not implicate Trump with him and drag him downwards but the president may issue a pardon in his favor.

As for Cohen, who is one of Trump’s lawyers, he’s also involved in five charges, two are related to tax and bank fraud while two are related to violating laws of funding the presidential campaign.

He also involved Trump with him in a case that’s been known for a long time now, which includes paying $130,000 and $150,000 to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, to buy their silence over a reported affair. Cohen confessed that Trump asked him to pay this hush money after denying this for some time.

Yes, this is a more serious case but it’s not with the heavy weight that can remove a president from office.

Even if the Democrats sweep the House of Representatives, they will not be able to impeach Trump because they would need two thirds of the votes in the Senate which has never happened in America’s history.

Out of 45 American presidents, this “nuclear” weapon was only used with two presidents: Clinton due to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Andrew Johnson after he violated the law and replaced the Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.

In both cases, the impeachment process failed (Nixon resigned, and was not impeached, after his frank involvement in the Watergate Scandal).

The American constitution is designed in a way where it is difficult to remove a president from office in order to maintain the stability of the political system.

The case is not that dangerous for more than one reason. First of all, it happened at a time before Trump became president, during the presidential campaign (i.e. the hush money paid happened then and not the reported affairs which happened in 2006). Second of all, we’ve begun to see Trump’s legal payments as he stated that he used his own money to make the payment and did not use the money of the presidential campaign, which would have been a violation of the electoral campaigns’ law. Therefore, we will witness a long term legal fight.

Third of all, Cohen’s reputation is stained due to his corruption, changeful character and contradicting statements. Once he said he likes Trump to the extent that he will take a bullet for him but he changed his mind and decided to expose the facts after he saw him submissively stand next to Putin in Helsinki.

The devious and deceitful lawyer who is up to his ears in legal cases suddenly became a patriotic fighter. It’s difficult to remove a president from office no matter how bad he is by relying on the testimony of a deceptive lawyer. All these reasons will not remove Trump from his throne. Doing so requires a strong storm and this is a mere whirlwind.

Trump is like a cat, he succeeds at landing on his feet one time after the other. The talk about impeaching Trump will benefit him and harm his Democrat rivals.

This is why Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives, and who is an experienced politician, warned her colleagues of making any impeachment statements because they would mobilize the Republican base which thinks that its leader is facing a dirty conspiracy that seeks to get rid of him and it will thus throw its weight behind him especially given his economic success.

This is why Trump said in his recent interview with Fox News that if he were impeached, the economy would collapse, there would be recession and poverty would spread.

He is linking his impeachment project with a panic and fear that could happen and he is sending messages to his supporters who could take to the to the streets in the upcoming midterm elections and the 2020 elections.

Thus, we’ve seen how impeachment transformed from a gun directed to Trump’s head into a weapon in his hand!

This article is also available in Arabic.

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Mamdouh AlMuhaini is the Editor-in-Chief of Al Arabiya News Channel’s digital platforms. He can be followed on Twitter @malmhuain