Democrats predict Trump's impeachment with increasing confidence

The incoming chairs of two powerful House committees have predicted a "real prospect of jail time" for U.S. President Donald Trump.

Rep. Adam Schiff, the incoming chair of the House Intelligence Committee, told the CBS show "Face the Nation": "There's a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office the Justice Department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time."

Rep. Jerry Nadler, the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told CNN that, if it is proved that Trump directed the payments, that would amount to "impeachable offenses."

"They would be impeachable offenses, whether they are important enough to justify an impeachment is a different question," Business Insider cited him as saying.

"But certainly they'd be impeachable offenses because even though they were committed before the president became president, they were committed in the service of fraudulently obtaining the office, that would be an impeachable offense."

Nadler stressed that Congress may not immediately impeach Trump because that would be "an attempt to, in effect, overturn the result of the last election and should do it only for very serious situations."

"You don't necessarily launch an impeachment against the President because he committed an impeachable offense. There are several things you have to look at," he added.