US President Donald Trump has responded to speculation that he might be impeached by warning that any such move would damage the economy.
In an interview with Fox & Friends, he said the market would crash and “everybody would be very poor”.
He was speaking after Michael Cohen, his ex-lawyer, pleaded guilty to violating election laws and said he had been directed to do so by Mr Trump.
Mr Trump has rarely spoken about the prospect of being impeached.
Correspondents say it is unlikely Mr Trump’s opponents would try to impeach him before November’s mid-term elections.
Speaking in the interview, President Trump said: “I don’t know how you can impeach somebody who’s done a great job.
“I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor.”
Pointing to his head, he said: “Because without this thinking, you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverse.”
Cohen had said that he handled hush money payments to two women during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The two women, thought to be porn star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both claimed they had affairs with Mr Trump,
Under oath, Cohen had said he had paid the money “at the direction” of Mr Trump, “for the principal purpose of influencing the election”.
However, Mr Trump insisted the two payments had not broken election campaign rules.
He said that the payments had come from him personally, not from the campaign, but he had not known about them until “later on”.
In July, Cohen released audio tapes of him and Mr Trump allegedly discussing one of the payments before the election.
The president also accused Cohen of making up stories to receive a lighter sentence.
He added: “And by the way, he pled to two counts that aren’t a crime, which nobody understands.
“In fact, I watched a number of [TV] shows. Sometimes you get some pretty good information by watching shows. Those two counts aren’t even a crime. They weren’t campaign finance.”(BBC)
