The Impeach-O-Meter is a wildly subjective and speculative daily estimate of the likelihood that Donald Trump leaves office before his term ends, whether by being impeached (and convicted) or by resigning under threat of same.
The big question in Washington, D.C. Thursday is whether Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore will be able to survive the Washington Post’s well-documented report that he molested a 14-year-old girl—who he’d introduced himself to outside a custody hearing while working as a prosecutor!—when he was 32. Part of the reason to assume he will survive it, of course, is that Donald Trump is president—the same man about whom this was written in 2016:
Four former contestants in the Donald Trump–owned Miss Teen USA pageant told BuzzFeed that Trump walked in on them while they were changing during the 1997 competition. The dressing room was full of contestants—51 in all—between the ages of 15 and 19.
A fifth woman—who made her accusation on the record using her name—later came forward as well.
Trump told Howard Stern in 2005 that he did, in fact, engage in such behavior, though the context involved adult pageants rather than teen events:
Well, I’ll tell you the funniest is that before a show: I’ll go backstage, and everyone’s getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it. You know, I’m inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good. You know, the dresses. “Is everyone OK?” You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. “Is everybody OK?” And you see these incredible-looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that.
Ha ha! He sure does. Get away with it.
Today’s meter level is the same as yesterday’s. What difference does any of it make?
Photo illustration by Natalie Matthews-Ramo. Photos by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Win McNamee/Getty Images, Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images, Drew Angerer/Getty Images, and Peter Parks-Pool/Getty Images.
