Impeachment would prompt economic crash – Trump

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President Donald Trump and his allies tried to head off mounting talk of his impeachment Thursday, 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 advisors 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 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 lawyercum-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.

In another hammer blow 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.