Analyst:

Trump will continue to disrupt impeachment process

The impeachment probe launched by Democrats against President Donald Trump will likely fail to harm his re-election chances and the Republican president will continue to disrupt the process as much as possible, a political analyst in Maryland says.

News ID: 447979

Date: 13 December 2019 - 12:28

RNA - “There are a lot of factors that can help or hurt Trump’s re-election,” said Myles Hoenig, who ran for Congress in 2016 as a Green Party candidate.

“In all likelihood, Trump will survive impeachment. Nearly all Republican senators are afraid of Trump’s base and fear retribution at the polls in November,” Hoenig said in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday.

“One thing that’s a guarantee is that President Trump will not act in a mature, professional way. He will be abusive, childish, demagogic, and continue to disrupt the process as much as he can,” he added.

“If things are going badly for him, like attacks on his ego getting to him, we could easily see him lash out in ways that could turn off his supporters, giving the vacillating senators an out.”

House Democrats launched an impeachment inquiry against Trump in September after the unknown whistle-blower alleged the Republican president pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, who had served as a director for Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Democrats are looking into whether Trump abused his power by withholding $391 million in US security aid to Ukraine as leverage to pressure Kiev to conduct an investigation that would benefit him politically.

The White House said last week it would refuse to take part in hearings in the House of Representatives set for this week that will consider what articles of impeachment to bring against Trump.

Trump, who denied any wrongdoing, thus far has refused to cooperate with the inquiry and ordered current and former administration officials not to testify or provide documents.

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 during his second term after it became certain he would be impeached and removed from office over the Watergate scandal.

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