WASHINGTON: US President
Donald Trump warned Thursday the
US economy would collapse if he were impeached, as legal chaos roiling the White House has experts saying his presidency is under threat.
Days after Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen told a federal judge he made illegal campaign contributions at the president's request -- to silence women alleging affairs with Trump -- the Republican leader told Fox News that an impeachment would only cause more turmoil.
"I will tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor," Trump said on "Fox and Friends." "You would see -- you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe in reverse."
The US president then launched into a rambling statement on job creation and other economic progress he said had been made during his presidency.
"I don't know how you can impeach somebody who has done a great job," Trump said.
Trump was dealt severe back-to-back blows on Tuesday when Cohen pled guilty to illegal campaign finance violations and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted of tax and bank fraud within minutes of each other.
The Manafort conviction was the first case sent to trial by the special prosecutor probing Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
But an unchastened Trump appears intent on riding out the storm as Washington grapples with the latest upheaval in his tumultuous presidency.
The president has insisted he did nothing wrong after Cohen, his longtime private lawyer and fixer, implicated him in the illicit hush payments made before the 2016 election to two women who claimed to have had affairs with the Republican presidential candidate.
Although Cohen did not name them, the women were believed to be porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal.
Because the hush payments were intended to influence the outcome of the elections, they violated US laws governing campaign contributions.
In entering a guilty plea, Cohen said the payments were made "in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office," in clear reference to Trump.
Trump was evasive when asked in the Fox News interview if he had instructed Cohen to make the payments, saying that his former lawyer "made the deals," and insisted that Cohen's actions were "not a crime."
"Campaign violations are considered not a big deal, frankly," he said.
Trump then said the hush payments were financed with his own money -- to which Cohen had access -- and that while he had no knowledge of them at the time, he had since been fully transparent.
Despite Trump's defiant tone, Washington-based campaign finance expert Kate Belinski, of the Nossaman law firm, said to expect legal consequences for both Trump and his campaign -- most likely in the form of a civil complaint before the Federal Election Commission.
In addition to the two counts of violating campaign finance laws, Cohen also has pled guilty to six counts of fraud.
In the sit-down with Fox, Trump slammed his once close associate for "flipping," saying it "almost ought to be outlawed."
Trump conversely praised Manafort for going to trial -- where the president's former campaign chief was found guilty of eight counts of financial fraud.
The US president lauded the 69-year-old Manafort for leaving his fate to a jury rather than striking a plea deal -- a move that has sparked speculation Manafort hopes for a pardon.
Asked if he was considering such a move, Trump said only that he has "great respect for what he has done, in terms of what he has gone through."
"One of the reasons I respect Paul Manafort so much is he went through that trial," Trump said.
Trump was dealt severe back-to-back blows when his two former aides were held guilty on fraud charges.
