It is becoming clearer that Democrats (and a couple of anti-Trump Republicans) might actually impeach the president in the House of Representatives. Democrats are the majority. Democrats control the committees. Nancy Pelosi controls the agenda. They can probably vote to impeach Trump without another thing being done. They have the numbers in the House.
But what happens when it goes to trial in the Senate?
This obvious fact has been pointed out many times before now: 67 senators are required to remove a president from office (2/3 of the Senate). Only 45 senators are Democrats, while 53 are Republicans and two Independents. It will be almost impossible to get 67 senators to vote to remove Trump unless something much more devastating against him develops (or unless George Soros buys them off).
Emoluments? No. Collusion with Russians to affect the 2016 election? None found. Obstruction of justice? Not enough evidence. Stormy Daniels? A joke. Trump taxes? No relevance, and SCOTUS has yet to decide. Well, what about this thing with Ukraine coming from an unnamed whistleblower?
President Trump will never be removed because of his conversation with the president of the Ukraine. Rep. Adam Schiff screwed it up. Schiff is violating the principle of due process, which will give nine Democratic senators all the reason that they will need to vote "no" on removal of Trump, along with 52 of the 53 Republican senators.
Other than anti-Trump, jealous Mitt Romney, no Republican will vote "yes." So maybe 39 senators will vote "yes" while 61 will vote "no" or will abstain – this when 67 "yes" votes are needed to remove Trump from office. And that will be a victory Trump will use all the way into the 2020 election just as he will use the Mueller report and the IG report about FBI/CIA actions to flog Democrats and the media.
Why nine Democratic senators? Nine Democrat senators are from states that went for Trump in 2016. Nine: Doug Jones from Alabama, Krysten Sinema from Arizona, Debbie Stabenow from Michigan, Gary Peters from Michigan, Jon Tester from Montana, Sherrod Brown from Ohio, Bob Casey from Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin from West Virginia and Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin.
Unlike House members, who are only accountable to the people in their districts, which allows representatives like AOC to do and say crazy things, U.S. senators are accountable to all the people in their states. Each senator needs to represent the will of the people of all the state. That makes it tough for these Democrats from Trump states to vote "yes" to remove him (again, unless Soros buys them off).
National polls are useless. Just as with the Electoral College in the 2016 election, U.S. sentiment dominated by California and New York is not relevant. Just as with the Electoral College in the 2016 election, conviction in the Senate is a state by state issue. This will be about what the citizens of each state want their representative senators to do. The two Senate votes from Wyoming or Idaho are worth just as much as the two votes from California, despite the differences in population and influence on polls.
Are you hearing any of this from the media? Why not? Why do most of the media seem to support impeachment and conviction? Why have so many in the media been caught making false statements?
If the Ukraine incident is the best Democrats in the House can produce, then each of those nine Democratic senators is vulnerable in is or her next election for casting a vote to oust Trump. So each of them will look for justification to vote "no." And Schiff is providing lots of reasons for them to vote "no," lots of violations to due process, lots of irregularities. For example:
1. Whistleblower collusion with Schiff and Clinton Democratic lawyers, CIA and FBI prior to filing the whistleblower document.
2. Whistleblower not being called to testify so Trump lawyers cannot cross examine him/her.
3. The whistleblower document was used falsely as the means to secure the call transcript and subpoenas just as the FBI used the Steele dossier to secure the FISA warrant.
4. Contradictions between the transcript and the whistleblower accusations.
5. Closed-door testimonies.
6. Statements by the president of Ukraine that contradict the accusations by Democrats and contradict the testimonies from biased witnesses.
7. No hard evidence of quid pro quo for Trump's personal political gain – just circumstantial evidence.
8. Schiff, on Oct. 13, stated that the whistleblower is not being called as a witness because the whistleblower has no firsthand knowledge. OK, so then why did Schiff use the whistleblower accusation to launch an investigation?
By the numbers, only 39 "yes" vs. 61 "no" or "abstain" votes in the Senate will be a huge defeat for Schiff, Pelosi and Nadler. Humiliating. Devastating. And anything less than Trump's removal will be a huge win for the president.
Trump will highlight this debacle in the 2020 election as one more unsubstantiated, false accusation by Democrats added to a long list, one more attempted coup against an elected president, yet another way to attack the liberal media cartel as being colluders with Democrats … all by the numbers.