Market would crash if I was impeached, claims Trump
DONALD Trump has said he believes the economy would tank if he were to be impeached. The US president made the comments as his White House struggled to manage the fallout after his former lawyer Michael Cohen said Mr Trump directed a hush-money scheme to buy the silence of two women who say they had affairs with him.
In an interview with Fox & Friends, the president suggested that Cohen’s legal trouble stemmed from his other businesses, including involvement with the New York City taxi cab industry.
He also claimed his longtime personal lawyer only worked for him parttime and made up “lies” to reduce his legal exposure.
“It’s called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal,” Mr Trump said.
Cohen’s plea deal and the conviction of Mr Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on financial charges have raised speculation that Democrats would launch impeachment proceedings if they win the House of Representatives this autumn.
Mr Trump argued the move could have dire economic consequences.
“If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor,” Mr Trump said.
He added: “I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who’s done a great job.”
“Without this thinking,” said Mr Trump as he pointed to his head, “you would see, you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse.”
Mr Trump did not say if he would pardon Manafort, but expressed “great respect” for him and argued that some of the charges “every consultant, every lobbyist in Washington probably does”.
Cohen, who said he will not seek a pardon from Mr Trump, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to eight charges, including campaign finance violations that he said he carried out in co-ordination with Mr Trump.
Behind closed doors, Mr Trump expressed worry and frustration that a man intimately familiar with his political, personal and business dealings for more than a decade had turned on him.
Yet the White House signalled no clear strategy for managing the fallout.
At a White House briefing, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted at least seven times that Mr Trump had done nothing wrong and was not the subject of criminal charges.