The impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump poses a serious threat to his presidency, according to Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy, who noted it is a "political act" with a broad scope.
"In basketball, they have this term 'head fake,'" Ruddy told CNN's Christiane Amanpour Tuesday night from London.
"I think what we're seeing from Democrats in Congress is a head fake."
Congressional Democrats, Ruddy continued, are saying the impeachment investigation is only about Ukraine, and that it will wrap up in 90 days.
However, six different congressional committees are conducting investigations, and that could spell trouble for the president, he said.
"The polling data is moving in favor of the inquiry," Ruddy said. "The number of people saying the president should be impeached is increasing. Not significantly, but it's moving in a bad direction for the president."
Ruddy added he does not think Trump committed any crimes in relation to Ukraine or in his conversation with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but with the number of committees involved in the inquiry, the probe will likely widen.
"We all know that when Watergate started, nobody had even heard of the Watergate tapes," Ruddy told Amanpour.
Ruddy said he has spoken with Trump a couple of times after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced the impeachment inquiry, and he thinks the president agrees with his assessment the probe is "a political, not a legal act," noting it comes with just 13 months until the 2020 general election.
But as the allegations that have been raised about Trump and Ukraine are serious, they should have been brought out through the congressional oversight process, not through an impeachment inquiry, Ruddy said.
"Instead, they immediately, without speaking to the whistleblower, without seeing the whistleblower's complaint, without interviewing anybody, they immediately call for an impeachment inquiry," he said.
Ruddy added he thinks Trump and the White House are "overreacting by withholding testimony," as the truth will come out.
He said the president fully cooperated with the Mueller probe, waived executive privilege and was still accused, unfairly, of obstruction. Ruddy said he thought it was also a mistake for the White House to keep EU Amb. Gordon Sondland from testifying before congressional committees Tuesday, Ruddy said.
"I believe Congress has a serious oversight role," he said, while pointing out he would not use the word "obstructed" to describe what happened with Sondland.
"I believe the president and the White House should respect that oversight role."
Ruddy said he also would have allowed Sondland to testify, "unless there's some really pressing reason for privilege."
He also pointed out, when former President Bill Clinton was impeached, he thinks critics "made a very big mistake" and it backfired by making the president very popular.
"I think a lot of Democrats are going to look back and say Donald Trump was not as bad as they thought at the time," Ruddy said.
"He's reconfiguring the China relationship. These trade deals, these are the things Democratic unions support. Border security, that was a Democratic issue. NATO spending, that's a Democratic issue . . . There's a knee-jerk reflex against the president because it's Donald Trump."
Meanwhile, Ruddy said he does not think an investigation into Joe Biden is "smart, or politically right," but it was not a crime for Trump to request an investigation.
"There's no evidence Joe Biden committed any crime, or his son, so I don't think he should be investigated," Ruddy said.
He noted Trump himself came under investigation even when there was no evidence he colluded with Russia, and the Mueller probe concluded the same.