jchilds wrote:But would VP Pence necessarily become President if Trump is impeached, smr?
If the Democrats have the votes to impeach Trump, they can likely also manage the votes to impeach Pence, if he's able to be implicated in what's alleged to be going on(VPs are also impeachable, are they not?). In that case, the Presidency would then go to the Speaker of the House, IIRC. Who would likely be a Democrat in this scenario?
At the moment, there is sufficient public support that they can get away with removing Trump if they can scrape up the votes.
Pence, on the other hand, currently has nothing public against him. Without some MAJOR revelations in the very near future, any attempt by the Dems to boot him as well will essentially eliminate the Dems as a meaningful political party on the national level for the next 10 to 20 years. Their base would love it. The middle, on the other hand, will see it as nothing but a blatant underhanded purely partisan move. Piss that group off and you stop winning elections.
If we were at all likely to see such revelations, it is all but guaranteed that there would be hints floating around. Leaks are just to popular for something like that to stay quiet.
Additionally, if the Dems take control of the Senate in the November election you can expect the Repubs to do the impeachment themselves in late NOV/early DEC. That will allow them to pick the new VP before the new congress is seated - I am 99% sure they already have someone in mind. In that case, even if they can make a case to boot Pence, just how will they justify impeachment #3 to get their guy to the top spot?