The word "Impeachment" has been increasingly featured in the American media throughout the last several weeks. The notion of Trump’s impeachment thrills millions, and is gaining momentum. However, it is likely that Mr. Trump will not be impeached anytime soon. If you follow Latin American politics, it is likely you know this by now. After all, Latin America has seen more than 5 impeachments throughout the last 20 years. Knowing from at least one of the impeachment cases in Latin America is enough to understand Trump’s current prospect is not as turbulent as the panorama that the impeached Latin American Presidents’ faced.

Dilma Rousseff was impeached in 2016 on the charges of hiding the country’s budget deficit and her cabinet’s scandals of corruption. Michel Temer has been in office for a year and was recently taped mentioning the payment of hush money to Eduardo Cunha, a former member of Dilma Rousseff’s administration who is currently in prison, to bury information related to corruption scandals to which he probably is related. Temer is currently being accused of receiving around 4.6 million dollars in bribes.

Guatemala’s Otto Perez was impeached in 2015 because he was found guilty of leading a corruption ring that defrauded millions of dollars of the Guatemalan State. President Perez and members of his administration were found guilty of reducing import tariffs in exchange for bribes.

Peru’s Fujimori was impeached in 2000 on the grounds of corruption and excessive use of power. In 2009 he was found guilty of crimes against humanity. Ecuador’s Lucio Gutierrez was first accused of embezzlement and then impeached in 2005 on the grounds of abandoning constitutional duties. Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo was impeached in 2012 on more political grounds. With the members of his own party as well as the rest of the establishment against him, he was impeached on the grounds of “generating the struggle between social classes that brought about the massacre between countrymen”. He was blamed for the killing of 11 farmers, a situation in which he was not directly involved.

Despite the differences between each of the cases we had in Latin America, we can extrapolate from them two general lessons applicable to both mature and immature democracies. In very rough terms, for a President to be impeached he/she needs to either (1) have committed, without doubt, a judicial crime; or, (2) have the establishment against him/her. Of course, politics is something with a great number of contingent nuances and so there is no rule of thumb that helps us determine what will happen next with certainty. But, impeachment generally does come down to those two factors as its main drivers.

The truth is Trump fulfills neither of the requisites. Or at least, there has been no conclusive evidence that proves the contrary. Former FBI Director Comey’s memos, the documents that fueled the discussion of Trump’s impeachment, and his recent statement at Capitol Hill do not offer indisputable evidence of any illegal activity committed by Donald Trump. As things stand now, it is Comey’s word against Trump’s. Neither the memos nor Comey’s statement are close to what Nixon’s “smoking gun” tape represented. The truth is that they do not entail Trump’s impeachment. Plus, the Secret Service acknowledged they had no tapes on Comey’s and Trump’s conversation which makes the possibility of Trump’s impeachment a stretch for now.

Comey’s testimony and memos, however, do raise suspicion on Donald Trump’s actions and put him under heavier scrutiny. It is likely that with deeper investigation Comey’s firing might be the element that lead to Trump’s impeachment at some point in the future.

It is also no secret the establishment is far from being against Mr. Trump. It would take more than a memo or a testimony for the Republican majority at the House or Senate to turn against him. Nonetheless, the memo and Comey’s subsequent declaration at Capitol Hill are a big step at eroding Trump’s ability to govern as it creates divides between him and the Republican party. Depending on what happens on the near future, the Republican Party might have to choose between securing their seats in Congress or supporting Donald Trump.

Donald Trump seems to be the ultimate incarnation of the Orwellian leader. At first, the position he adopted when it came to anything related to Russia and his Presidential campaign was not surprising whatsoever. He spat a few words and tweeted with great conviction, as usual, something along the lines of “I think it’s totally ridiculous. Everybody thinks so...Director Comey was very unpopular with most people.” It was clear he was following his mantra when it comes to adverse realities, “If I do not believe in it, it is not true.” It did not matter whether the subject of this frame of mind is the truth or not.

But what we’ve seen lately suggests that his double-thinking is not working this time. People know something is going on. He is not convincing people around him, not even himself. Despite Trump's impeachment will not take place in the near future, he has revealed that he dreads the course that the Russia-ties scandal might take.