Stonewalling the impeachment process is a typical Trumpian tactic. It is also a ghastly mistake, for the following reasons:
- Trump is effectively preventing friendly witnesses from testifying at the hearings. Only people who are willing to resign and testify against him will appear. As a result, the House will have to find that there was a quid pro quo, and the GOP will have to defend him on the basis that the quid pro quo was perfectly acceptable behavior, not that it didn’t happen.
- Trump clearly intends to defy subpoenas in this process. The Democrats will attempt to enforce the subpoenas through the judicial system. Trump is going to lose that litigation; even his Supreme Court won’t save him. Then what? He will be in the same position that Nixon was in with the tapes. If he then ignores the court order, he will unquestionably be committing an impeachable offense, based on the Nixon precedent.
- The most likely outcome at that point is a vote for acquittal, but with several GOP senators voting for conviction. That is the record he will have to rely on during the campaign. No one will believe that the process was a purely partisan witch hunt. The voters will respond accordingly.