Donald Trump is now more likely to be impeached than to complete his full term as President

In his congressional testimony 18 October 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was asked by Senator Al Franken the following question:

You don’t believe that surrogates from the Trump campaign had communications with the Russians?

He replied:

I did not — and I’m not aware of anyone else that did. I don’t believe that it happened.

The Washington Post has since reported that members of the Trump campaign allegedly interacted with Russians at least 31 times throughout the campaign, with at least 19 known meetings.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has been probing the Trump administration with an investigation since May 2017, his recent focus has been into Russian financial entities who allegedly shored up Trump's and Jared Kushner's troubled real estate empires.

Only two presidents have ever been impeached - Bill Clinton on the grounds he perjured himself in front of a grand jury and obstruction of justice over the nature of his affair with Monica Lewinsky, and Andrew Johnson after he dismissed Edwin Stanton, his Secretary of War.

The impeachment process depends on a simple majority in the House of Representatives which is currently controlled by Republicans 238 to 193. They also control the Senate 52 to 46, plus two independents, where the impeachment needs a two-thirds backing to remove the President.

In short, a number of Republicans need to back the impeachment - or the Houses need to become far more blue, to pass.

Online betting service Paddypower at the end of 2017 placed Mr Trump's odds of impeachment in his first term at 4/7, with it at 5/4 that he will survive the first time.

This means they think it's roughly 1.5 times as likely (63.6 per cent to 44.4 per cent) that he will be impeached in his first term, than finish it.

The odds of him being impeached extend with each year that passes:

Midterm elections in the Senate and in Congress will take place on 6 November 2018. All 435 seats in Congress and 33 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested.

Of the 33 seats in the Senate, 23 are currently Democrat, two are independent and eight are Republican. If the Democrats win all the midterm seats (a tall order), they'll still need ten sitting Senate Republicans in order to pass an impeachment vote in the Senate.

HT NewsWeek

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