Russia dossier: what happens next and could Donald Trump be impeached?
Source: Guardian (US)
With days to go before Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States, Washington has been convulsed by news of a 35-page intelligence dossier containing incendiary allegations from Russian spies about close links between the Trump camp and the Kremlin as well as salacious sexual details that could allegedly expose the next US head of state to blackmail. The allegations are wholly unsubstantiated, but were deemed serious enough for US intelligence agencies to pass a two-page summary of them last week both to Trump and the current president, Barack Obama.
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Trump called it fake news, but can it be dismissed so easily?
At a press conference on Wednesday in Trump Tower, the president-elect dismissed the dossier as fake news, phony stuff, crap and the work of sick people among his political opponents. Certainly, none of the news organizations that had access to the dossier before this week, including the Guardian, were able to verify its most salacious details and nor have the intelligence agencies been able to ascertain whether it is at all reliable. But it is unlikely to be discarded as quickly or as conclusively as Trump would like. The flip side of information that cannot be classed reliable is that neither can it be classed unreliable. The individual responsible for compiling the reports a former British MI6 officer called Christopher Steele is highly regarded among US and UK intelligence circles and was at one point head of MI6s Russia desk. He was described to the Guardian by a US official as consistently reliable, meticulous and well-informed, with extensive Russian contacts.
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How bad could it get for Trump?
As ever, the question of whether the Russia dossier has legs is a matter not of science but of politics. The degree to which it might continue to snap at the heels of the 45th president depends on whether there is the appetite to pursue the claims. News outlets can be expected to stick with the theme, though all efforts so far on their part have failed to throw up anything solid. Congress has formidable powers to subpoena witnesses that have the potential to uncover secrets that others cannot reach. Two Republican senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both of them Trump skeptics, have been pushing for a no-holds-barred investigation into Russian hacking by a special select committee of the ilk of the Watergate panel. But so far the leadership of the Republican party, who control both chambers of Congress and thus have the final say on any such exercise, have shown no appetite for rocking the boat with their new president. That leaves the intelligence agencies. The danger for Trump here is that he has so alienated senior officials, not least by likening them to Nazis, that he has hardly earned their loyalty.
Donald Trump's truce with spy agencies breaks down over Russia dossier
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At most extreme, could the new president be impeached and how?
We are currently a very long way from this point, but not so far to prevent speculation about whether Trump could be impeached. Were Trumps team to be found to have conspired with the Kremlin to distort the 2016 presidential election, that would certainly fall into the impeachable category. But, again, it is entirely unsubstantiated. To take a flight of fancy, what if it were substantiated? That would again come down to a question of politics. No US president has ever been forced out of office by impeachment (Richard Nixon resigned before the vote; Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were acquitted by the Senate). Any such procedure would have to be prepared and approved by a majority of the House of Representatives, and then passed to the Senate for a two-thirds majority vote. As the Republicans hold the reins in both chambers, it would take an almighty severing of ties between Trump and his own party to even get close to such a place.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/12/donald-trump-russia-dossier-what-happens-next?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+morning+briefing+2016&utm_term=208334&subid=20993289&CMP=ema_a-morning-briefing_b-morning-briefi
It is at least positive to see the impeachment question being raised in a headline, however unlikely it may be as a possibility in this republican congress.
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