American foreign policy expert James Jatras believes that even if US President Donald Trump holds the Senate he is likely to be removed from office.
Jatras, a former Senate foreign policy adviser in Washington, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday while commenting on reports of the possible impeachment of Trump after midterm US election in November.
Former US President Richard Nixon’s top adviser in the Watergate scandal Andrew Hall has said that Trump will “undoubtedly be impeached.”
Hall made the remarks in a recent interview with The Independent, where he said he is watching history repeat itself with Trump as more of his aids get nabbed in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into the alleged Russian election interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Jatras said that he cannot “somehow say for sure that President Trump will be impeached but I think odds of it are very, very strong.”
“I would currently place them about 65 percent. It really depends on whether the House of Representative is captured by the Democrats in the elections this November. If that is the case I would say that the odds of impeachment go up to about 85 percent,” he said.
“If the Democrats take the House, it is almost certain that they will impeach President Trump,” he stated.
“And I believe (even) if President Trump holds the Senate he is likely to be removed. Unlike the Democrats who in the Senate rallied around President Clinton when he was impeached, Republicans do not have that pattern. Let’s remember how President Nixon was basically driven out of office, not just by the Democrats but by his own Republican Party who made it clear that they would vote to remove him if there actually was a trial in the Senate,” the analyst noted.
“I think the same thing would happen to President Trump. The only difference is Trump would not resign. Trump would actually fight it in the Senate. And I think he probably would be removed,” he said.
“On the other hand if the Republicans hold the House, the chances of the impeachment go down to 20 percent in my opinion,” he concluded.
Despite an apparent reluctance between Democratic leaders for an impeachment before the November 6 election, several Democrats such as Representative Al Green have been filing articles of impeachment.
The possibility of an impeachment increased last month after the Republican president’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of bank fraud, tax fraud and violations of election campaign finance laws.
Cohen's campaign finance law violations included paying hush money to women who Trump had alleged affairs with prior to the 2016 US presidential campaign.
Following Cohen’s confessions, Rep. Green warned Trump that the “countdown to impeachment” had already started.
Trump found himself another step closer to possible impeachment after his former campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight charges by a federal jury in Virginia, including bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to report a foreign bank account.