“Perceptions” by Gerry Warner

It may be too early to call President Donald Trump toast, but surely the bread has been placed in the toaster!

Trump is now a heartbeat away from being directly investigated by the FBI over collusion between his election team and the Russian SVR, the Foreign Intelligence Service (read: spy agency) that was preceded by the infamous Soviet KGB.

It doesn’t get much more serious than that.

Talk about Watergate revisited. You think that’s an exaggeration? Well consider what New York Times columnist David Leonhardt said in the most influential newspaper in America Tuesday: “Our president is a liar, and we need to find out how serious his latest lies are.” That’s about as direct as it gets and carries a thousand times more force than any Facebook posting or Twitter tweet.

In fact, in normal circumstances, such an incendiary statement would be an outright libel and career ender for any journalist, especially one writing for the most prestigious newspaper in the United States. But rest assured, Leonhardt isn’t going to be sued by Trump or any other fatuous blowhard. Not even when Leonhardt went on to say the current president of the United States “lies in ways that no American politician ever has before,” adding Trump was the one who started the malicious “birther” controversy by claiming former President Barack Obama was born outside the U.S., as well as a host of other lies including originally denying his remarks over the groping of women.

And what was Trump’s response to the latest firebombs launched at him by the Times? He does as he always does. He went back to campaign mode, holding a rally before 18,000 adoring fans in Louisville, Kentucky where he talked about repealing Obama Care, tax cuts, the “wall” – anything but FBI Director James Comey’s shockwave announcement the same day that the federal force had launched a formal investigation into allegations that Trump’s election team had colluded with Russian spies to discredit Hillary Clinton in order to ease the way for his stunning upset electoral victory.

In the face of this momentous allegation by the most powerful police force in the land, Trump was conspicuously silent and did the only thing he knows how to do, reverting to campaign mode in front of thousands of sycophantic supporters. And yes, the world has seen this kind of cheap rhetoric before in the 1930s. The location was Nuremberg, Germany. And we all know what that led to.

But people aren’t being conned that easily this time around. In the U.K, bookies are taking bets on Trump’s impeachment and the odds have pulled close to even.

Most political pundits think impeachment is unlikely until at least the mid-term elections in 2018, which could be a disaster for the Republicans. In the early days of Watergate, few believed Nixon would be impeached either. But as the scandal deepened, even Nixon himself began to believe impeachment was a possibility and chose to resign rather than face the humiliation of being impeached by Congress. And when you consider that former National Security Director Michael Flynn has already been forced to resign for lying about meeting with Russian intelligence agents and calls are ringing for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign for doing essentially the same thing, Trump’s impeachment becomes more than a fantasy.

Even your humble correspondent believes the chances of a Trump impeachment are far greater than Toronto winning the Stanley Cup. My reasons are simple. If, as many predict, the Republicans fare badly in the mid-term elections, it will finally dawn on the Neanderthals in the Republican hierarchy that sticking with Trump will be like sticking with the captain of the Titanic and pull the entire party into the briny deep. And when that realization hits home dear readers, the Republican backroom will force Trump to resign in another dark chapter in American political history. Or Trump will pull a Nixon and resign himself.

Would I lie to you? Not a chance.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and former city councillor, who was “resigned” from office by the voters, but not impeached.

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