trump may quit before he gets fired

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[Moved from News to PPR]

That's what I've been wondering about: If Biden gets through, but Republicans scored house and Senate, could they impeach him for that (with low bar required for impeachment after most recent attempt), or can he only be impeached on actions that occur once he takes over?

My numbering.

1) won’t happen. Democrats are leading very strongly both in the generic ballot and in polls of individual Senate seats (Arizona and Colorado in particular, and to lesser extents in Iowa, North Carolina, Maine, Georgia twice, and even Montana). It’s not impossible that Republicans hold the Senate, but if they lose Arizona, Colorado, and the VP and gain Alabama then they can only afford to lose one of the other six competitive races I highlighted.

As for the House, similar story there except the Democrats have control. Unpopular President, poor generic ballot performance - the Republicans are likely to lose seats at a time when they need to be gaining.

2) Yes, they can impeach any President for “Treason, Bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanours”. In Nixon v. United States, the Supreme Court set out three general types of conduct (non-exhaustive) that could fit into that last category: exceeding or abusing the powers of the office, behaviour incompatible with the function and purpose of the office, and misusing the office for an improper purpose or personal gain.

However, conviction requires a two-third supermajority, which the Republicans cannot physically get in this election. The Democrats theoretically could but that isn’t going to happen.

Given that the Republicans cannot hope to remove Biden, they would probably decide not to pursue a frivolous impeachment which might come back to bite them.

3) I don’t think there is any reason to think that the impeachment of Donald Trump “lowered the bar”. His behaviour seems to meet the definition set out in Nixon v. United States more obviously than Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

This might be good to remind people of when they complain that Trump's impeachment lowered the bar. The bar was lowered when Clinton was impeached, and relative to Clinton's Trump's was well 'above the bar'.

I don't think he'll quit, either. He has nerves of steel.

He won't quit because quitting is an admission of failure, and only losers fail.  He hates being called a loser.

Quitting is a form of failure, but it's possible that he'd rather fail by quitting than fail by losing. I'm not counting on him quitting, but I won't be entirely surprised if it happens either. Trump ragequitting seems like a suitably Trumpian ending to this trumpian saga.

He never wears a mask..we can only hope.**** cough cough cough****

But it's Mhike Pence who goes to corona hotspots to watch the choirs sing unmasked.

Then maybe we will have President Pelosi.

But if he KNOWS he’s going to lose the election badly and doesn’t want the public & historical humiliation of getting crushed he might just walk away and find some BS excuse to justify it. He could quit and say that you bunch of ingrates don’t deserve his presidenting anymore or some crazy crap like that.

Sorry, I misread your post.
I'm sure they'd try. But lack of evidence is still lack of evidence. Besides, Trump would be gone, and the Republican representatives and senators wouldn't any longer live in fear of the Trump cult in the next election.

How could Biden be impeached for something that happened years before he became president? Also, it’s not something He even did - some company hired his kid. He didn’t make them do it afaik.

Somehow I doubt a potus could be impeached for an alleged offence prior to them being potus. If that we’re the case trump would have been impeached dozens of times for all the crimes and unfit behaviour he’s done all his life.

I’m not sure if he’s capable of knowing that: reasons to suspect his imminent home move are reported by the “fake news media” after all...

I could see a scenario where Biden is impeached largely by the influence of establishment Republicans (Republicrats? RHINOS Republicans in name only) working in tandem with the democratic establishment to then allow the VP to ascend and really get some work done. Biden seems to be a few steps away from having to have someone wipe away his drool. I feel like the poor guy is being used as a prop when people should be caring for him at this stage. Harris for example wants to take Obama's "Hope and Change" and crank it up to 11.