“President Pelosi” trended on Twitter on Friday as President Donald Trump’s haters fantasized about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) becoming the next president after BuzzFeed reported that Trump ordered his then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about a proposal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow.
Pelosi is third in line to the presidency, and the Buzzfeed report, which was based on anonymous sources, caused left-wing activists to dream about Trump and Vice President Mike Pence both getting removed from office or resigning.
Democrats like Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) who said that Trump must “must resign or be impeached” if the Buzzfeed report is true got anti-Trump activists even more excited.
Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) also tweeted, “If the President directed Cohen to lie to Congress, that is obstruction of justice. Period. Full stop.”
Earlier this week, Allan Lichtman, the impeachment activist and American University history professor, laid out the “unlikely” scenario in which Pelosi would become president this year.
“It is unlikely, but now at least possible, that Nancy Pelosi will be the next president of the United States. It will not happen by election in 2020, but by succession to the White House this year,” Lichtman wrote in The Hill. “Other than the vice president, the Constitution does not specify an order of succession to the Oval Office, which is determined by federal statute. Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, not the secretary of State, is in line for the presidency after the vice president. Therefore, if both Donald Trump and Mike Pence are either removed from office or resign, then Pelosi becomes president.”
Here’s how Lichtman laid out the Resistance’s dream scenario:
If there is evidence of Trump selling out to the Russians, and Pence took any part in covering it up, then the vice president could also be found guilty of an impeachable crime or the concealment of a felony. The United States Code clearly provides that an individual “having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years.”
If Trump and Pence are swept away by conviction or resignation, then Pelosi becomes president under the law. Under the 25th Amendment, and with the consent of Congress, she can then appoint a vice president of choosing, just as Richard Nixon appointed Gerald Ford after Spiro Agnew pleaded guilty to tax evasion and resigned. This is how, in the great irony of ironies, Nancy Pelosi could become president of the United States.
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