People presume that the Senate will fall in line behind Trump and vote the party line. While I would concede that's perfectly possible, I don't think it's a foregone conclusion.
When Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, he did after Senate Republicans told him they had done a nose count and the President could count on no more than twenty — and probably far fewer — who would not vote to remove him during a Senate trial after he was impeached. Yet only a few months earlier, Nixon still enjoyed fairly strong support amongst Republicans on Capitol Hill and also amongst voters.
Release of the most damning Watergate tapes the President had refused to surrender arguably is what spelled Nixon's end. And it was an end that was not visible very far in front of it.
So the same could happen with Trump. Yes, if the Senate vote was today, he probably would survive. But the vote won't be today. It might not be until early next year at the earliest.
And a lot can surface between now and then. Look where we were just a month ago. Impeachment seemed highly unlikely. And then the Ukraine scandal broke. Impeachment went from highly unlikely to highly likely.
If this scandal was a baseball game, we're still in a very early inning. It's far too soon to predict who will win. Many more exciting plays will happen. Stay tuned.
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