Will Trump Resign By Wednesday Evening? Or Will It Take Longer?

painting by Nancy Ohanian

36% is pretty bad-- the worst approval rating any president has had in 70 years-- and Trump's approval ratings just keep getting worse and worse. Is their a floor? At around the 33% mark, cowardly Democrats-- like Pelosi and Hoyer-- and panic-stricken Republicans will start talking about impeachment. And once the first number is a "2" for a month or so, only hard-core neo-fascists and actual Confederates in Congress will still stick with Trump. But Philip Bobbitt, LBJ's nephew and a distinguished constitutional law professor at Columbia University, says it's not likely to come to that. Writing for the Evening Standard in London, Bobbitt asserts that Señor Trumpanzee is more likely to resign than be impeached. And it would be naive not to blame poor dumb elephant-killing Fredo for a rapidly approaching constitutional crisis. And Kushner-In-Law.

Bobbitt, who has served as an advisor to his uncle as well as for Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton and Obama, doesn't for-see Trump holding on.

A piece of the iceberg which is largely hidden broke off this week and floated to the surface of public consciousness. Donald Trump Jr acknowledged receiving an email stating that the Russian government was prepared to offer “very high-level and sensitive information” as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump” that would incriminate Hillary Clinton. Trump Jr arranged to receive the information at a meeting attended by himself, his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and his father’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort that, in the event, proved disappointing.

As former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said this week: “I can’t believe this one exchange represents all there is … We are headed for a constitutional crisis.” Where would be the endgame of such a crisis?

One possibility is impeachment. Although most attention has been focused on the President’s culpability for having obstructed justice by attempting to thwart the FBI investigation into the Russian connection, a more promising possibility is impeachment for bribery. Most people think of the “bribery” listed in the constitution as a basis for impeachment as the taking of a bribe, and this is certainly true. But equally important is offering a bribe. By determining that the head of the FBI, James Comey, wished to continue in his post, the President came perilously close to violating the constitution when he then stated that he would “think about it”, and raised the subject of Comey terminating the Russia investigation. Indeed, the offering of such a bribe formed one of the counts in Richard Nixon’s impeachment when it was alleged he offered a judicial promotion to a judge for favourable treatment in court.

A second possibility is indictment for the violation of a criminal statute-- such as the Espionage Act, lying to a federal officer, the suborning of perjury or the obstruction of justice. But since a sitting President cannot be indicted, and can only be prosecuted once he has been removed from office-- or ended his term-- this is for the time being unlikely.

The likeliest possibility is the President’s resignation, as a consequence of the criminal prosecution of his children. Whatever his policy goals, it has long been clear that creating a dynasty-- having destroyed the two reigning political dynasties in the last campaign-- is his greatest objective. Resignation, as remote as it seems right now, might well be a choice the President would make to save his children from prison, and himself from future prosecution.

Would the President pardon them? If he did, it would seal his impeachment and his own prosecution.

Paul Ryan has been called the barrier to impeachment proceedings against Trump-- and the Adelsons wrote him two $10,000,000 checks in return for him backing Trump-- but a some point Ryan will have to ask himself if poltical suicide is where he wants to be heading-- and for someone he viscerally detests. Iron worker and union activist Randy Bryce has caught on in a big way-- nationally and in southeast Wisconsin-- and the latest polling shows Ryan likely to lose his 2018 reelection bid. No one on Capitol Hill would be happier than Ryan to see Trump resign-- and as soon as possible... better Wednesday morning than Wednesday evening. Ryan doesn't deserve to be let off the hook so easily-- and does America really deserve Mike Pence?