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Odds Of Trump Impeachment Hit All-Time High On Prediction Markets

Allegations that Trump directly ordered his lawyer to lie to Congress have sent shockwaves through Washington.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the Missile Defense Review announcement at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Jan. 17, 2019.
Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during the Missile Defense Review announcement at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Jan. 17, 2019.

The people who are willing to put money on it believe it's likelier than not that U.S. President Donald Trump will be impeached by the end of the year, or at least by the end of his first term.

The odds of impeachment jumped sharply over the past few days, in the wake of a news report indicating that Trump directly ordered his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a Trump Tower project in Moscow.

Watch: Trump instructed Cohen to lie to Congress about Moscow project, report alleges. Story continues below.

Traders gave Trump a 51-per-cent chance of being impeached by the end of 2019, as of Friday at PredictIt, a real-money platform where "investors" can bet on political outcomes.

The odds of a 2019 impeachment had been sitting around 38 per cent until the Buzzfeed story broke.

The odds of a Trump impeachment during his first term spiked after a bombshell story from Buzzfeed this week.
PredictIt
The odds of a Trump impeachment during his first term spiked after a bombshell story from Buzzfeed this week.

The chances that Trump will be impeached at some point in his first term were only slightly higher at 53 per cent, up from around 47 per cent earlier in the week. This suggests that most of those betting on a Trump impeachment expect it to happen soon.

Citing two unnamed law enforcement officials, Buzzfeed reported that after the 2016 election, Trump personally instructed Cohen to lie to Congress by claiming that negotiations on the Moscow project had ended months earlier than was the case.

"Even as Trump told the public he had no business deals with Russia ... sources said Trump and his children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project," the news site reported.

Since the story broke, Democrats in Congress have called on Trump to "resign or be impeached."

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