When it comes to predicting Donald Trump’s impeachment, Allan Lichtman, the professor from American University who also famously predicted that Trump would become president last year, has always been regarded as a reliable authority. When Professor Lichtman predicted that Donald Trump would become president, he did so by using a formula which has also accurately seen the prediction of eight previous presidents. It is this which makes Allan Lichtman extremely certain about the fact that President Trump will ultimately end up being impeached.
Curiously, one of the people who really seemed to care about Professor Lichtman’s prediction that Donald Trump would become president was Trump himself. However, President Trump has managed to either overlook or completely ignore Allan’s second prediction, which is that Trump will face impeachment. Politico reports that in Lichtman’s new book , The Case for Impeachment , Professor Lichtman explained that Donald even made contact with the professor once he became president and let him know what a good call he had made.
“Taking time out of preparing to become the world’s most powerful leader, he wrote me a personal note, saying ‘Professor — Congrats — good call.’”
While a great many Democrats publicly declared that the very first thing they would do once Trump became president was to try to impeach him, Lichtman has said that it may not take quite as long as anybody thinks and that Trump’s impeachment may come about sooner rather than later. In the professor’s new book, he will “explain how Trump threatens the institutions and traditions that have made America safe and free for 230 years, and I’ll make clear why a Republican Congress might impeach a president of its own party.”
While predicting that after Trump’s impeachment Mike Pence will become the next president of the United States, Allan Lichtman lists the many things that Donald Trump could very feasibly be impeached for. These include but are not limited to emoluments violations, treason over President Trump’s connection with Russia, and general abuse of power, which could be many things.
There has also been discussion as to whether or not Trump could be impeached for things he did before he took office. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who at one time was a senator, made perfectly clear that he believed a president could be impeached for actions they took before they were president. In Donald Trump’s case, this could include many things such as housing violations, possible violations when it comes to the Cuba embargo, Trump University, and issues with charities.
Could you imagine If President Obama Let Malia Decide If He Would Bomb Syria or not? pic.twitter.com/EpJT8p68M4
— Impeach Donald Trump (@Impeach_D_Trump) April 13, 2017
If President Trump wishes to avoid impeachment, the professor suggests different strategies for avoiding this fate. Some of the things that Lichtman believes would help Donald Trump would be to decide to support the Paris Climate accord, lay off the “Mussolini act,” start treating females with more respect, and make certain that the president uses a fact-checker in the future. The professor also challenged Trump to “add a shrink to the White House physicians.”
“Opponents will challenge your decision-making abilities and claim that they were right all along about your temperamental unfitness for the presidency, yet you have survived and thrived by defying the conventional political wisdom. Why not do it again?”
Allan Lichtman also writes about how President Andrew Johnson once showed the United States that an impeachment and trial “could benefit the nation.”
“Justice will be realized in today’s America not through revolution, but by the Constitution’s peaceful remedy of impeachment. But only if the people demand it.”
It’s not just Professor Lichtman and academics who believe that President Trump could be impeached. Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison from Minnesota said publicly in February that the decisions and actions made by Trump “legitimately raise the question of impeachment.” And in March, Democratic Rep. from California Maxine Waters told Donald that he should “Get ready for impeachment.”
Time Magazine reports that the Constitution specifically states that grounds for impeachment include “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” So in order to seriously discuss impeaching Trump, his opponents would need to present solid evidence that the president has done something which would fall into one of the above categories as outlined in the Constitution.
If the citizens of the United States and political leaders did decide that there were grounds for the impeachment of President Trump, the work would start in the House of Representatives where either an impeachment resolution or a resolution which would authorize an investigation into allegations of abuse would have to be made. If either of these two things happened and impeachment proceedings began, the impeachment resolution would have to pass a simple majority in the House.
However, with Republicans in charge of the House, this could be quite a difficult task to accomplish. Theoretically, if lawmakers decided tomorrow to impeach President Trump, each of the 193 Democrats and 23 Republicans would have to agree with the impeachment proceedings to take Trump out of office.
Do you agree with Professor Allan Lichtman’s prediction that President Donald Trump will be impeached?
[Featured Image by Joe Raedle/Getty Images]