Analyst:

Trump will ‘rule like a madman’ if he is not removed after Senate impeachment trial

US President Donald Trump will continue to “rule like a madman" and without any constraints if the Senate fails to convict him at the conclusion of the impeachment trial, a political analyst in Maryland says.

News ID: 448608

Date: 24 January 2020 - 10:26

RNA - “In a week or so either two things will happen. Vice President Pence will be sworn in, and complete the destruction of the office of the Presidency, or Trump will see himself like the Phoenix rising and rule like the madman he is, without any constraints,” said Myles Hoenig, who ran for Congress in 2016 as a Green Party candidate.

Trump’s impeachment trial “will go down in history as an obviously very partisan fight but also with the lack of testimony and evidence permitted at this time, if it were to continue, the entire role of the presidency will forever be questioned,” Hoenig said in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday.

“Most Republicans know the president did wrong, but in fear of his retribution for their own re-elections, they remain obsequious to his demands,” he added.

Democrats in the US House of Representatives launched an impeachment probe against Trump in September after an anonymous intelligence community whistleblower accused the Republican US president of pressing Ukraine's president to investigate Trump's political rival, Joe Biden, and Biden's son, as well as a debunked theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.

The House voted to impeach Trump last month on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress over the Ukraine scandal.

Impeachment begins in the House. If the lower chamber of Congress approves impeachment, a vote is then held in the Senate. A two-thirds majority vote would be needed in the Senate to remove the president from office.

With Republicans in control of the Senate, Trump’s acquittal also seems likely.

Nearly half of Americans say Trump should be removed from office, and a majority want more witnesses to testify in his Senate impeachment trial, according to a new poll.

About 44 percent of adults say Congress should convict Trump and remove him, another 15 percent say he should be reprimanded formally with a congressional censure, the Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday found.

About 72 percent in the survey also said that the Senate impeachment trial “should allow witnesses with firsthand knowledge of the impeachment charges to testify,” including US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton.

Trump so far has rejected the requests by Democrats to turn over documents related to the administration’s activities in Ukraine last year. He has also urged officials like Bolton and Pompeo not to participate.

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