President Hassert impeached

WI there had been a double vacancy between election day November 2006 and the new Congress meeting jan 2007.

Hassert would become President.

Had the issue of his crimes against youngsters came out....
 
Republicans would have closed ranks around him, attacked the accusers, and it would have been swept under the rug because Democrats would be too scared of rocking the boat any further. Especially after whatever mishaps would be required to get Bush and Cheney out of the White House, the country would be a mess.
 
I had posted a President Dennis Hastert scenario a few weeks ago, and I think the molestation evidence would have come out earlier if he'd been in that high of a position of power.

Either way, he'll be getting impeached, and it would take a miracle for him not to be found guilty. He will be the first US president to be put behind bars, and whoever he picked for VP will likely not bail him out for the sake of whatever election chances the Republicans have left. It'll probably sway a few close elections in 2008 and overall produce some record results for the Democrats. Whoever runs in 2008 (it won't be whoever Hastert picks as his VP) for the Republicans will also have a guaranteed loss, unless the Democrat nominee decides to commit some crimes like rape, child molestation, etc. themselves, which as far as we know from looking at the Democratic field, is probably ASB.
 
I had posted a President Dennis Hastert scenario a few weeks ago, and I think the molestation evidence would have come out earlier if he'd been in that high of a position of power.

Either way, he'll be getting impeached, and it would take a miracle for him not to be found guilty. He will be the first US president to be put behind bars, and whoever he picked for VP will likely not bail him out for the sake of whatever election chances the Republicans have left. It'll probably sway a few close elections in 2008 and overall produce some record results for the Democrats. Whoever runs in 2008 (it won't be whoever Hastert picks as his VP) for the Republicans will also have a guaranteed loss, unless the Democrat nominee decides to commit some crimes like rape, child molestation, etc. themselves, which as far as we know from looking at the Democratic field, is probably ASB.

Don't give Donald Trump ideas on new false insults!

So the Democrats have got their election guarnateed in 2008. I don't know who Hastert would pick as Vice President, but John McCain or Donald Rumsfield seem like good picks. His impeachment, or more likely than not resigning like Nixon would have quite an effect on the American people.
 
With the child molestation charges, the Republicans cannot rally around him. He would resign. Vice President McCain takes over and loses in 2008,
 
Republicans would have closed ranks around him, attacked the accusers, and it would have been swept under the rug because Democrats would be too scared of rocking the boat any further. Especially after whatever mishaps would be required to get Bush and Cheney out of the White House, the country would be a mess.

Yeah no. This coming on the heels of Mark Foley molesting pages, Republicans wouldn't touch Hastert with a 10 foot pole, much less close ranks and defend him.
 
It depends on how Bush and Cheney go. If they die in some terrorist attack then the rally around the flag effect would be such I doubt the story goes public and Hasert doesn't run in 2008 and the world continues onward. If both the President and VP go down in some mega scandel and then the Speaker does well the GOP will be in the wilderness for quite some time.
 
Would it even come out though? With all the resources available to the President of the United States...
 
One thing missing from this scenario is how Hastert becomes acting president in the first place.

The idea seems to be a double impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney. But what are the charges and how does the impeachment happen?

How realistic is a House of Representatives with a Republican majority impeaching a Republican President? I don't think its very realistic at all.

The four occasions where the House even considered impeachment, even with Tyler, it was controlled by the non-presidential party.

The most likely scenario to get a Republican House Speaker as acting Prez is for a double impeachment-removal of Clinton and Gore in 1999. For that you need not just Monica, but a really serious scandal involving bribery and espionage, and I'm not sure even that is enough. And Clinton supporters will be looking for dirt on Hastert, as they did on Livingston.
 
Sorry for the double post, but I don't think any PODs involving the Presidential Succession Act are realistic after the passage of the 25th Amendment. In other words, we are dealing with ASB territory.

This actually came up historically. Vice President Agnew got in trouble over a bribery scandal right around the time of Watergate. What actually happened is that he resigned, and Nixon selected a new Vice President in accordance with the 25th Amendment. This strongly suggests that in a circumstance where both the President and Vice President are in danger of being forced out of office, a new VP will be found first. This will probably involve some sort of deal behind the scenes.

If both the Prez and VP dig in their heels in this circumstance, and impeachment and removal moves forward, the House will make sure that the Speaker is suitable to take over the executive branch. That means removing the Speaker if there is even a whiff of scandal, or the Speaker steps aside to increase the chances of the impeachment being successful. Something like this actually happened in 1998-9, which is how Hastert became Speaker in the first place. By the way, the Speaker does not have to be an elected Congressman.

Now you could have a double assassination of the President and Vice President, but this is really, really hard to pull off. It was only attempted once in US history, and that was during the Civil War.

More likely is a scenario where a Vice President fills a presidential vacancy, and everyone takes their time over finding and confirming a new Vice President, as was the case with Ford and Rockefeller. Then something happens to the new President.

Its not also clear, just from reading the text of the 25th Amendment, whether in the event of a double vacancy with the presidency and vice presidency, that the country gets a new President or a new acting President. Its probably the latter. Congress has never clarified this because the situation is so unlikely to come up.
 
Yeah no. This coming on the heels of Mark Foley molesting pages, Republicans wouldn't touch Hastert with a 10 foot pole, much less close ranks and defend him.

Yes, but much more importantly, it's coming on the heels of some unspecified misfortune that leaves the presidency and vice-presidency vacant. Remember, the Republican consensus post-Watergate is that Nixon did nothing wrong, and was pilloried by the Democrats over nonsense. That's why they could defend even someone as questionable as Hastert: because he'd only be allegedly a child molester...according to the other party. They'd claim false equivalence with Clinton and how Democrats defended him through thick and thin, and go the extra mile to discredit the accusers. In the meantime, Democrats would probably feel nervous about already having watched Bush and Cheney depart office, so letting another guy leave so soon afterward would be seen as disruptive. They couldn't be trusted to defend the accusers. Not when "political stability" is at stake.
 
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