US: The noose is tightening around Trump’s political neck ⁰

The impeachment inquiry by the US House of Representatives against President Donald Trump is tightening the noose around “Trump’s political neck,” according to Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst in Maryland.

The US House Judiciary Committee has invited Trump to its first impeachment hearing due next week. Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, wrote a letter to Trump on Tuesday and invited the Republican president and his counsel to participate at the hearing scheduled for December 4.

The hearing is the first in the third phase of the investigation into whether Trump abused his powers in pressing Ukrainian leaders to find dirt on his political opponents.

The US House Judiciary Committee has invited President Donald Trump to its first impeachment hearing due next week.

Hoenig, who ran for Congress in 2016 as a Green Party candidate, said, “President Trump has done and said some pretty dumb stuff, even for a president. Right now he’s in a position to counter Nadler in calling his bluff about him not being available to face his accusers. Question is whether Trump will testify or not, or allow his team to be part of the Judiciary’s role in his own prosecution. Whatever he does, it will work against him.”

“Everyone seems to compare the impeachment to a court case, but acknowledging that the rules of evidence are different and that it’s more of a political rather than a legal proceeding. What has happened already in the Intelligence Committee and now Judiciary is more akin to a Grand Jury, where defendants have no say in its process and the cards are always stacked against the defendant. It’s the actual trial, in this case the Senate, in which the defendant has a modicum of defense. When the state prosecutes nearly anyone, they have all the powers of the state and usually win. If the defendant is powerful and wealthy enough, the odds improve on their acquittal. Trump will have the powers of the presidency and some limited powers of the bully pulpit to make his case,” he said.

“If he allows his people to take part in overseeing the hearings in Judiciary, the committee is bound to have certain expectations that certain people must testify. Trump will lose if that happens. If Trump testifies himself, as a way of defending his actions, he’d be fully open to perjury charges, which is why his own lawyers never wanted him to testify in the Mueller investigation,” he stated. 

“If he refuses and continues to call it a witch hunt, or look the other way when his neo-nazi supporters and handlers call it a Jew coup, public opinion will see him in even a worse light,” he noted.

“The noose is tightening around Trump’s political neck. Although the needle of public opinion hasn’t moved much after weeks of riveting public hearings under Congressman Schiff, the tide can certainly change when the Trump team actually has an active role in its own demise,” the analyst concluded.

Source: Presstv