Re-election ‘easier’ if I’m impeached, says Trump

Donald Trump believes his chances of retaining the White House next year will be strengthened if Democrats try to impeach him.

Par for the course … Donald Trump arrives at the White House after a trip from Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia. Picture: AP

Donald Trump believes his chances of retaining the White House next year will be strengthened if Democrats start impeachment proceedings against him.

Asked in an interview broadcast yesterday whether he thought impeachment was good politics for him, the US President replied: “I think I win the election easier.”

Mr Trump repeated his longstanding allegation that the FBI’s counter-intelligence investigation into his 2016 campaign was illegal.

“I was spied on. What they did to me was illegal. It was illegal on the other side. I did nothing wrong,” he said in the interview with NBC’s Meet the Press.

“So impeachment’s a very ­unfair thing because nothing that I did was wrong. And if you look at the Mueller report, there was no collusion. This was all about ­collusion.”

The Democrats are split over whether Mr Trump should be impeached after the report by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russia­n interference in the 2016 election outlined numerous contacts between his campaign team and Russians, as well as evidence the President tried on several ­times to stymie the investigation.

While many of the candidates for the Democratic nomination are pro-impeachment, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi has argued it would be a risky move without an “iron-clad” case and bipartisan support.

If the Democrat-controlled house were to vote on formal impeachme­nt charges, the Republican­-held Senate would decide whether to convict, which requires an unlikely two-thirds majority.

Mr Trump told Meet the Press that Ms Pelosi was staving off growing impeachment calls from within the Democratic caucus ­because she agreed with his assessme­nt that it would harm her party’s prospects in 2020.

“I think she feels that I will win much easier,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been told that by many people.”

Mr Mueller, a former FBI directo­r, spent nearly two years investigating Russian election inter­ference and possible involvement by Mr Trump and his inner circle. He concluded that there wasn’t sufficient proof of a criminal conspiracy, but found that Mr Trump’s campaign welcomed and expected to benefit electorally from information stolen and release­d through Russian efforts.

Mr Trump would not commit to addressing election interference with Russian President Vladimir Putin when they meet at the G20 summit in Osaka this week. Asked by Meet the Press host Chuck Todd if he would raise the issue with Mr Putin, Mr Trump said, apparently sarcastic­ally: “I may. If you’d like me to do it, I’ll do that.”

Mr Trump said he was not prepared to lose his re-election bid and said former vice-president Joe Biden was his preferred opponent.

“I’m probably not too prepared to lose. I don’t like losing. I haven’t lost very much in my life,” he said.

He offered rare praise for 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, saying she was a “great candidate” and that he would rather run against Mr Biden than face her again.

“Sleepy Joe. He’s sleepy. She was not sleepy,” he said.

Asked about a controversy over substandard conditions in holding centres for migrant children at the southern border, Mr Trump blamed his predecessor Barack Obama for the Trump ­administration’s family­ separations policy and said Democrats were holding up humanitarian aid. “We’re doing a fantastic job under the circumstances,” he said. “What we’ve done is we’ve created, we’ve, we’ve ended separation. You know, under president Obama you had separation. I was the one that ended it.”

Mr Trump declined to commit to ordering the FBI to investigate the murder of The Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and links to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard has said there was “credible evidence” to warrant ­investigation and financial sanctions against the prince over Khashoggi’s murder in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last October.

Mr Trump suggested other Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, had committed worse crimes and an investigation would be harmful to US business interests.

AFP