Pence ‘planning’ his presidential inauguration

WASHINGTON: US Vice-President Mike Pence is preparing for Donald Trump’s impeachment, a congresswoman from the rival Democrat Party has claimed.

“Mike Pence is somewhere planning an inauguration”, Maxine Waters wrote on Twitter.

“Priebus and Spicer will lead the transition” she added, referring to the two latest members of Trump’s White House to resign.

Reince Priebus stepped down as chief of staff while Sean Spicer resigned as press secretary in recent weeks.

Waters was the first US politician to claim the salacious sex acts alleged in the unverified “Russian blackmail dossier” against Trump are “absolutely true”.

The document alleged Russia has compromising sexual and financial information on the president.

A long time critic of Trump, Waters has also repeatedly called for his impeachment.

“He’s someone that I’m committed to getting impeached!” Waters told a Washington bookshop audience in May. “He’s a liar! He’s a cheat! He’s a con man!” Two Democrat congressmen, Al Green and Brad Sherman, filed the first impeachment articles against Trump on July 12.

They claimed Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI director James Comey during his probe into Russian interference in the election.

But for an impeachment trial to go ahead, a majority in the House of Representatives and a two-thirds majority in the Senate must approve it.

With both the House and Senate under Republican control until at least the mid-term elections in November next year, this is unlikely.

Pence has distanced himself from the recent scandals rocking the White House, including revelations of Donald Trump Jr’s meeting with a Russian lawyer during the election campaign.

The vice-president is “not focused on stories about the campaign – especially those pertaining to the time before he joined the campaign”, Pence’s spokesman said in a statement, shortly after they emerged.

Only two American presidents have been impeached, and in neither case did it lead to their removal from office. Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson were both exonerated by the Senate and completed their term in office.

Richard Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal before Congress could impeach him.

Fourteen vice-presidents later became president – eight of those because of the death of the sitting president and one following the resignation of the sitting president. – The Independent