My question is who would Trump nominate as replacement VP should Pence resign or be impeached prior to Trump leaving office. I don’t have any idea, but there is some history to consider.
Bear with me for some background first. Starting with Pence’s situation, the latest news about the original letter justifying the firing of Comey puts the VP—along with a host of other people—in legal jeopardy. The allegations are
(1) the letter states in a “screed” that Comey is to be fired over the Russia investigation;
(2) this provides clear-cut intent that the firing of Comey was obstruction of justice;
(3) Pence knew of the letter’s contents—and hence the obstruction; and
(4) Pence made public false utterances in furtherance of the obstruction of justice.
If this is correct, Pence is guilty of at least two criminal offenses: conspiracy to obstruct justice and misprision of a felony. Again, if this is all correct, then it’s not at all unlikely that there are or will soon be sealed indictments against the sitting VP.
The last time this kind of thing happened it involved—you guessed it—Agnew and Nixon. Nixon’s presidency was similarly unsnarling and one of the reasons his supporters used to argue against impeachment was that Agnew wasn’t up to being president—much as now people justifiably fear a Pence presidency. At the time, the Democratic Speaker was the affable but not-Presidential Carl Albert, so there was general concern about the line of succession.
Instead, what happened was that Agnew was forced out (who knows what negotiations went on behind the scenes prior to his resignation) and a “unity” candidate emerged for Nixon to nominate as the new VP. That candidate was the feckless Gerald Ford, who had bipartisan support.
So a possible scenario is that Pence cuts a deal of some sort to resign. It seems likely there would be multiple parties to such a deal. That’s where the scenarios begin to spin out of control. For example, there are now strong hints that the RNC itself accepted Russian money and assistance. If this is true, the chain of felonious misconduct would almost certainly extend to Speaker Ryan and (maybe) McConnell. If it does extend to Ryan, then he’s toast, too. In that case, the next in line is the 88-year-old Oren Hatch, and after that is the non-political and barely qualified Rex Tillerson.
Moreover, no one knows when (or even if) Trump will leave office. It’s not impossible (although unlikely) that there will be a Democratic Speaker by the time this happens. So, having Pence vulnerable or gone runs the risk of a Democratic Speaker becoming president after Trump resigns or is impeached and convicted.
Thus, the GOP has some interest in not having a felonious Pence as VP, but still having some control over the chain of succession and avoiding at all cost a Democratic Speaker becoming president.
I admit this is a tortuous and improbable line of reasoning, but it’s not impossible that senior GOP figures are considering all eventualities, including this one. This leads to the inevitable question of who might emerge as the “unity” candidate to replace Pence? It would have to be a Republican, probably a member of Congress, untouched by scandal, acceptable to the GOP rank and file in Congress, and someone at least not hated by Democrats. As nearly as I can tell, that’s the null set. (I’m avoiding horrifying possibilities like Lieberman.)
Expanding the set of possibles to governors, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts would probably be acceptable to Democrats. He’s a Republican, and from what little I know about him, he’s a libertarian loon, so McConnell and his ilk would get their tax cuts, but he’s also “socially liberal,” not explicitly hating on LGBT people. He’s also, according to polling, the nation’s most popular governor so he might even be an electable Republican in 2020, assuming the gay-haters in the GOP didn’t bolt and form their own party.
Anyway, it’s interesting to speculate.