Impeaching Donald Trump Becomes Probable If Republicans Are Allowed A Secret Ballot, Says Congressman
President Donald Trump’s impeachment is much more likely if Republicans are allowed to cast their votes via a secret ballot, according to California Democrat Brad Sherman.
Sherman, who introduced articles of impeachment against the president in 2017, told Newsweek that he has still not given up on his hopes of removing Trump from office. For removing Trump, two-thirds of the Senate would need to vote against him, meaning at least 20 Republicans would need to side with all the Democrats and independent senators in Congress. Although it remains an uphill task according to political pundits, Sherman believes that Republicans would vote for impeaching Trump if their votes are not revealed.
Comparing Trump to Richard Nixon, Sherman said that the current president doesn’t hold the same sway over the GOP as Nixon. He said the reason that Republicans continue to rally behind Trump is not because of his popularity.
“Donald Trump is less popular with Republican senators than Richard Nixon was, certainly at the beginning of the relevant term. Richard Nixon carried every state in the Union except one. You couldn’t say Richard Nixon didn’t win the popular vote,” Sherman said.
“If it could be a secret ballot, we’d have a much better shot.”
Nancy Pelosi: 'I'm not for impeachment,' slams Trump as 'not worth it' https://t.co/nPiivBNgca pic.twitter.com/m20p09i8QR
— WBAL-TV 11 Baltimore (@wbaltv11) March 12, 2019
Meanwhile, Sherman, who has focused his energies on looking at possible ways to impeach Trump, was asked about his opinion on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comments last week. Pelosi told The Washington Post that she was not interested in impeaching Trump because such a move would be deeply divisive to the country. Pelosi remarked that unless something truly compelling and overwhelming was uncovered, impeaching Trump was not “worth it.”
But Sherman said that Pelosi’s comments must be taken with a pinch of salt, as she was only referring to the fact that Republicans would need to be won over if Trump is to be impeached. Again drawing parallels to the Watergate scandal, Sherman said that he expects the Republicans to switch if the special counsel investigation — or the congressional ones — reveal something incriminating about Donald Trump.
Having said that, Sherman also reminded everyone calling for Trump’s removal that it is not going to be an easy task. Citing longtime Trump aide Roger Stone’s conversation with him, Sherman said that it would take a lot more to convince Americans that Trump is in the wrong than it took them to convince that Nixon was wrong.
“He said, ‘Look, back in 1974, there was one media, and everybody watched it. And you convinced the media that Nixon was a crook, and our people followed,'” Sherman said, referring to Stone.
