I understand the frenzied desire to impeach Trump right away and, hopefully, Pence would go down with him, but strategically that might not really be the best for the country and the world. If you look at the Line of Succession for POTUS there are only corrupt or magical thinking conservatives all the way down. After Pence, it would be the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. Ugh.
Here is the list:
Vice President Mike Pence
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan
President pro temper of Senate Orrin Hatch
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin
Secretary of Defense James Mattis
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke
Secretary of Agriculture Mike Young (the only Democrat!!!)
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross
Secretary of labor Ed Hugler
Secretary of HHS Tom Price
Secretary of Housing & Urban. Ben Carson
Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao
Secretary of Energy. Rick Perry
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
Secretary of Veteran Affairs David Shulkin
Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly
It seems the entire line up is made up of all the people we would never want to be POTUS. Perhaps there is a fantasy going around that if Trump is impeached for colluding with Russia to steal the election that somehow the election would be voided and Hillary would be awarded the winner or we would have a special election do-over. However there is absolutely nothing in the constitution that would allow that or even hints at how that would occur. The Line of Succession seems to have been made assuming that it would only be needed in case of death or incapacity of one or more of the top officials. If we actually get our wish and successfully impeach Trump and even Pence, it looks to me like we would just get another unfit asinine conservative as POTUS.
That dire outcome would be the result unless the process drags out such the the final verdict comes after the midterms in 2018 AND we also take the House so that the Speaker would then be a Democrat. That scenario is the earliest we could get a Democrat in the White House. If the impeachment proceeds faster, we will have a Republican Conservative as POTUS until at least 2020.
While we urgently need to get this country back on track for the sake of the environment and for all the people who are being harmed or killed by conservative policy changes, I’m just not convinced that we can have any real success until we get a Democrat (or Democratic Socialist) back in the White House. The fastest way to get there is the 2018 scenario.