Impeachment May Be Ending, But Trump’s Legal Problems Are Only Just Beginning

Next week, the GOP-controlled Senate will vote to keep Donald Trump in office, deciding to wallow in willful ignorance and not hear from any witnesses or examine any further documentary evidence. Impeachment will be over with. Trump can then declare himself fully exonerated and do his own perverse version of a victory dance.

But even though Trump may remain in office, there are plenty of major legal dangers on the horizon, and any of them could easily do enough political damage to assure that he doesn’t get a second term in office.


Bloomberg reports that various committees in the House will continue to take a close look at various aspects of Trump’s finances and the administration’s policies:

“Democratic-led committees in the House will keep seeking a wide range of evidence and testimony as they look into Trump’s administration, his policies and his businesses and finances. They also plan to keep a focus on his conduct in dealing with Ukraine.

“In addition, there are multiple court cases running on separate tracks seeking access to his tax returns, testimony from former White House officials and financial records to show whether the president is unlawfully profiting from foreign governments. Three of the cases will be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court in the spring.”

The Ukraine scandal if far from being in the rear-view mirror for Trump, especially with the February publication of a book by former National Security Adviser John Bolton, who will also likely be subpoenaed to testify before Congress.


Jonathan Chaitt writes in New York magazine that the worst may be yet to come for Trump:

“House Democrat(s) … can continue to press for Bolton’s testimony, and continue prying loose the documents Trump has withheld.

“At the same time, a criminal investigation is proceeding from the Department of Justice. That investigation has already led one of Trump’s co-conspirators, Lev Parnas, to flip on him and reveal a trove of incriminating evidence.”

Parnas will also likely appear before Congress to tell what he knows, and if he and his attorney continue to release audio and video recordings of Trump discussing the Ukraine extortion scheme, that alone could have serious political ramifications for both the president and his GOP enablers in Congress.


There’s much more to come, and Chaitt notes that Democrats can now go full speed ahead and declare that if Trump can seek dirt on a political opponent, they can damn sure conduct oversight investigations from now until Election Day:

“They can keep digging into Trump from next week through fall, keeping public attention not only on his corruption and abuse of power but also on the Republican conviction that abuse of power is permissible.”

And that, in the long run, may well lead to a wave election that returns Democrats to control of  the House, Senate, and White House.

In other words, karma isn’t finished with Donald J. Trump.

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