IN UNIVERSE THREE

As the Judiciary Committee’s hearings provide a steady dose of ever-more damaging evidence—aided by an intelligence community and ex-White House aides turned whistleblowers, cracks begin to widen in the Republican-conservative firewall that has been protecting Trump from the 2016 campaign on. Mitt Romney’s “deeply troubling” view of Trump’s behavior, and similar comments by Senator Ben Sasse and Pat Toomey, persuade a handful of House Republicans—many of whom like Texas Will Hurd have already announced their retirements—to vote for impeachment.

Similar cracks widen in the media; the Drudge Report continues to feature damaging stories about Trump on its front page. At FOX News, the war between the journalists and the advocates intensifies; an attempted “debate” between Andrew Napolitano and Joseph diGenova turns into chaos, as the principals almost come to blows.

When impeachment comes to the Senate, after a contentious House process where there are divides among the Republicans, half a dozen GOP senators vote to convict, leaving Trump in office, but seriously damaged. In February, 2020, Trump barely wins a majority of votes in the New Hampshire primary, with New Hampshire native Bill Weld coming in second.