Political Scientist: Trump Impeachment ‘Highly Likely’

President-elect Donald Trump will probably be impeached within the first year and a half of his term, one political expert postulated.

“I think it is highly likely that he will be impeached in the first 12 to 18 months,” Professor Angelia Wilson of the University of Manchester, England, told The Independent. “…Whether it will be about the Russia dossier or other scandals that are undoubtedly there, he has become a liability for the Republican party. At some point they will need to distance themselves from him in order to solidify reelection for the House.”

Wilson believes that Trump’s numerous “financial interests” will lead to conflicts of interest and violations of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, which bans the president from accepting any gifts, services or other offerings from foreign entities. However, Wilson said that it will take several months before impeachment proceedings begin, since Congress will likely give the president several chances to comply with the Constitution. As such, she said it will take at least six months before people “get properly fed up and start demanding formal proceedings.”

However, if the public rallies behind Trump, it might not happen.

“It is also a political act,” Wilson added of impeachment proceedings. “Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings could only occur because you had an opposition party in control of Congress. In the case of Trump, you would have to convince a Republican Congress to impeach a Republican president, which would fail if he still had public support – like it did with Clinton, and it would succeed if he didn’t – like in the case of Nixon’s resignation.”

Indeed, Wilson is not the only one to postulate on the likeliness of a Trump impeachment. Bookies in her home nation are setting high odds that Trump will be impeached and/or not complete his first term, while expert Allan Lichtman, who has accurately predicted the outcome of every presidential election in the last 32 years, told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Nov. 16 that there was “a very good chance” that Trump would face impeachment.

“First of all, throughout his life he has played fast and loose with the law,” Lichtman said on the program. “He has run an illegal charity in New York state. He has made an illegal campaign contribution through that charity. He has used the charity to settle personal business debts. He faces a RICO lawsuit.”

Sources: The Independent (2), CNN / Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr