Trump warns of public revolt

President and allies bid to head off talk of his impeachment

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump and his allies tried to head off mounting talk of his impeachment, warning it would sink the world’s largest economy and spark a public “revolt”.

After Trump was implicated as a co-conspirator in two campaign finance violations, both of them federal felonies, he and his closest advisers offered dire words of caution about the consequences of removing him from office.

“I will tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor,” the president warned in an interview aired on Thursday on talk show Fox and Friends.

“I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job.”

The president’s personal lawyer-cum-spokesman Rudy Giuliani echoed that stark warning, hinting at political unrest.

“You would only impeach him for political reasons and the American people would revolt against that,” he told Sky News while on a golf course in Scotland.

The comments came after two of Trump’s former top aides – onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort and longtime lawyer Michael Cohen – were found guilty of various financial crimes in a one-two punch for the president.

Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations in the form of hush payments during the 2016 campaign to two women who alleged they had affairs with Trump, which he said he committed at the behest of the then-candidate.

Although Cohen did not name the women, they were believed to be porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal. Because the hush payments were intended to influence the outcome of the elections, they violated US laws governing campaign contributions, making Trump an – as yet – unindicted co-conspirator.

In another hammer blow on Thursday, The Wall Street Journal and other US media reported that the CEO of tabloid publisher American Media, David Pecker, has been given immunity by prosecutors investigating the payments, opening a new area of vulnerability for Trump. Pecker’s company publishes the National Enquirer.

A president can be removed from office by Congress for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours”.

I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job. Donald Trump