- David Brody is our CBNNews political analyst

and David, this is a mess.

He didn't help with the President any.

Is there any thought thathe might try to pardon

Paul Manafort?

- Well, there's talk aboutthat here in Washington, Pat,

but at this point, a lot of folks,

at least in this parlor game that we know

of Washington, D.C., they'resaying pretty much no,

that wouldn't probably make much sense,

at least at this point.

But you know, thingschange in Trump world,

as we've known.

Look, this is a bit of a mess for sure

for the President but, interms of the legal jeopardy

question here and that's whateverybody is wondering about,

ya know, was is a crime?

Really, there's some mixed views on that.

I would say this, thatfrom a legal perspective,

what we're understandingis that what is the intent?

In other words, would President Trump,

and here's the legalquestion a lot of folks

are wondering and this is the question

that would need to be answered,

would President Trumphave done this anyhow

if there wasn't a campaign?

Well, there's been a history of paying off

a few people along the way and so,

therefore, if it's personal, if it was to

protect the marriage, Melania,

things that were going on there,

that's different thancampaign financial forum

and actually having atargeted reason to do so.

So, that's gonna be theother potential shoe

that could drop.

We'll have to wait and see.

Feels like a drip, drip,drip scenario here, Pat.

- Ya know, it all started with a so-called

investigation of Russian pedaling in our,

meddling in our election.

Mueller has got, that's his mandate.

He doesn't have a mandate to investigate

personal financial wrongdoingor violation of IRS statutes.

So, what are you hearingup there about his

overreach, that's what it amounts to?

- Well that's right, that word overreach,

that you just said therePat, is the keyword.

That has been repeated at the White House,

folks that are close to President Trump,

talking to sources thatare close to the President

this morning saying the same thing,

that this is not onlyoverreach, but talk about

Michael Cohen specificallyand how Michael Cohen

has a credibility problem, they say.

Ya know, we've heardRudy Giuliani say this,

but let's remember,Michael Cohen had said,

at one point early on, thatDonald Trump knew nothing

about any sort of payment and now,

apparently he knew all about the payment

and was directing it to go to, ya know,

from a campaign financereform perspective,

go into the campaign.

So look, they're gonnapoint to his credibility

and that's gonna be obviouslya linchpin of all of this.

As for Russian collusion Pat,

nothing on Manafort,nothing on Michael Cohen.

The one concern, clearly,at the White House,

is what else does MichaelCohen potentially know?

I know they talk about acredibility problem with Cohen

but we hear now thatMichael Cohen might have

some information aboutthis DNC hacking situation

that took place anddid Trump know about it

before it actually happened?

Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen'sattorney suggesting that

that could be the case.

We'll have to wait and see.

- How bout this impeachment stuff?

You know, it would almost be impossible

to impeach a president,but the House may try it

if it switches.

What do you hear about that?

- There's no doubt about it.

Nancy Pelosi and the democratswon't talk about impeachment

before the mid termelections, but they'll talk

a lot about it after forsure if they win control

of the House of Representatives.

I don't wanna say that's the plan,

but that's kind of theblueprint, if you will,

to go after this president.

Look, they were gonna go after him anyhow,

but now, with Michael Cohen's plea deal,

that's the linchpin, that'sthe center of all of this.

If you've got Michael Cohensaying that the president

directly told MichaelCohen to make this payment,

in essence, breakingcampaign finance laws,

you can imagine what thedemocrats are gonna do with that

and remember Pat, if thedemocrats take control

and you know this, but ifthe democrats take control,

what happens?

They have subpoena power.

They're the ones incontrol, not Republicans,

and that's not good newsfor President Trump.

- Well, last thing.

Of course, the Republicanstried to impeach

President Clinton, Bill Clinton,

and they got an impeachmentmotion through the House,

but it failed in the Senate.

So I think, what are people saying?

I mean, it really didn't go anywhere

and Clinton stayed in office.

- Well they don't have 67 votes,

anywhere near it in theSenate is what they'll need.

They would need two-thirds in the Senate,

as you know Pat and it's just not there.

So once again, just back to 101,

you can impeach a President in the House

like what happened to BillClinton but you have to

convict him in the Senateand you'd have to have

two thirds, 67 votes,they don't have that.

Now, having said that,the worst case scenario

is what happened to obviouslyRichard Nixon at the time,

where he basically lostthe Republican party

and they ditched him and at that point,

he was in all sorts ofproblems and he had to resign.

Now, the question then becomes,

how many Republicans willditch President Trump

if this thing gets worse?

And that, we just don't know right now.

- David, thank you somuch for that insight.