The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– Next president? –
As federal and congressional investigators dig deeper into allegations that Trump’s camp colluded with Russia to tilt the 2016 election, a handful of Democrats are now calling openly for the president to be impeached.
However remote the prospect of impeachment by the Republican-controlled Congress, the Russia cloud stubbornly refuses to dissipate.
Should Trump eventually be forced from office, Pence would become the 10th US vice president to assume the presidency without being elected — the first since Gerald Ford succeeded Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal in 1974.
When Donald Trump Jr recently acknowledged that he and campaign aides met a Russian lawyer last year in hope of obtaining dirt on Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, Pence distanced himself from the snowballing scandal.
“He is not focused on stories about the campaign, particularly stories about the time before he joined the ticket,” said a statement from Pence’s office.
But the vice president has not emerged entirely unscathed so far.
As head of Trump’s transition team, he publicly backed Michael Flynn during the uproar about contacts with the Russian ambassador which cost the newly-minted national security advisor his job.
And having flatly denied any Trump campaign contacts with Russia, Pence’s credibility is further rocked with each new revelation.
– ‘Losing credibility’ –
Pence’s defense will look increasingly questionable, especially if Trump’s troubles worsen. But it is survivable, said Michael Munger, director of the politics program at Duke University.
“Pence was probably not lying. He was lied to, and he took the party line and then kept his mouth shut when they cut him off at the knees,” the professor said.
“He is losing credibility, I suppose, but he gets extra points for doing his job.”
Yet Pence’s close ties to the president — as recently as last month he said serving with Trump has been “the greatest privilege of my life” — may yet prove an albatross around his neck.
“None of the last seven vice presidents have been so willing to be so sycophantic in their praise and have said so many significant things that later turned out to be untrue,” the expert Goldstein said.
Striking the balance between loyalty to an embattled leader and avoiding getting caught up in scandal is a fierce challenge.
Pence has “juggled” well, said Paul Beck of Ohio State University.
“But if this Russia controversy really gets the Trump administration into deep, deep trouble… then Pence is kind of trapped out there as one of the team.”
